The opening track Offering establishes the flavours that will predominate in this welcome return to recording for Laura Jurd after a three year hiatus. Martin Green’s accordion furnishes a drone behind Ruth Goller’s simple bass figures and energetic flurries from the drums, then bass and accordion conjure a theme which is restated, then embroidered by the trumpet, the whole thing gathering to a rather grand soundscape over which the leader’s lines cavort with abandon. Oltan O’Brien’s violin dances with her briefly near the end to round out a piece that, like many a studio track, feels as if it would like to expand beyond the five minutes presented here.
A couple of folk instruments in the ensemble, then, a touch of grunge from the always compelling Goller, and the drummer, Corrie Dick, who has underpinned every one of Jurd’s recordings to date.
There is often a folkish flavour to the themes, too. Jurd has suggested she was aiming for a primal feel, but that’s not quite it. The quality that shines out is something more timeless, a term she also offers – a dirge or a dance that might have evoked as ready a response a few hundred years ago as it does now. This is fully-considered contemporary music, though. Green and O’ Brien contribute a variety of textures as well as Scottish and Irish folk fluency, aided by some electronics in the accordionist’s case, and the drums ensure more rhythmic interest than folk music often provides. This is not pastoral jazz-folk: the band packs quite a punch, and there’s an abundant, happy energy about the whole enterprise. That grunginess is foregrounded on a couple of very brief freely improvised pieces – it will be interesting to see how this facet of their work extends in a live show.
The composed tracks offer satisfying variety. Aside from the danceable Lighter and Brighter, played in sprightly unison, most feature the leader’s solo trumpet – there is never any doubt whose album this is. And Jurd delivers impressively throughout, whether on the suitably minatory Praying Mantis or the headlong dash over a shuffle beat of What are you Running Toward? The only non-original, St James Infirmary, sees her wringing as much emotion from the tune as it has ever delivered.
Hailed by some as a new departure, this recording feels more like a reconsideration of fundamentals. The sound is not too far distant from Jurd’s lovely ten year-old Chaos Collective release Human Spirit, and the composed lines are recognisably from the same hand. That’s a good thing, as that earlier effort captured some of her best work, with a characteristic jauntiness of writing, playing, and even trumpet tone. All have developed impressively over the intervening decade, as this beguiling record testifies. The tour that begins next month (November) is one to look forward to.
