Line Up
Loz Speyer – trumpet, flugel
Chris Biscoe – alto sax, alto clarinet
Rachel Musson – tenor, soprano sax
Olie Brice – double bass
Gary Willcox – drums
The new Inner Space album, “Life on the Edge” is out on Leo Records! Recorded in one day at the end of extensive touring, it really captures the live and interactive quality of the music. The tour reached audiences at venues all around the UK – and the band has proved able to reach the ears and hearts even of those who claim not to like this kind of thing, yet without compromise to the avant-garde approach the music requires.
Inner Space plays jazz with a rare warmth and immediacy. The compositions combine rhythmic changes with subliminal references that synthesize New Orleans, Bebop and Free Jazz: this is new music rooted in the tradition running from Mingus to Ornette and beyond, where each composition finds its own way to frame improvisational freedom – the aesthetic is one of deep emotion, subtlety, simplicity, weightless swing.
This could only be achieved with the top class line up of: Chris Biscoe and Rachel Musson – saxophones, Olie Brice – double bass, Gary Willcox – drums, and Loz Speyer – trumpet; each of whom has become known in their own right as a unique voice, standing out from the crowd and defying category.
“One of the happiest evenings I’ve heard in jazz for many a long night… Music as rare as this defies description. Go along and see them! Or get their forthcoming CD…” – Karl Dallas, the Morning Star
“Loz has really got his musical concept and the group together – terrific.” – Mike Westbrook
“Upon listening, I was hooked… the contrapuntal moments when the horns venture just over the edge make me think that if ODJB had arrived 100 years later they may have sounded like this.” – Lance Liddle, bebopspokenhere
“It starts with Blue Note- and Ogun-spirit, with Spirits Rejoice-mood and Mingus-power. On the long road from ‘A to B to Infinity’ it passes through thick & thin, with short cuts and pitfalls as everyone knows who has ever played Snakes and Ladders. ‘Rocket Science’ is unfailingly retro-futuristic, tardis-blue, open for everything that was considered amazing in the 60s. Speyer revels in the splendor of the wind instruments, and happily lets them flicker and flame both collectively and solo. Space is the Place, with a night-blue sky and Now is the Time, a fast-paced ‘tempo-rich’ time, in which the horns blare out vigourously in turn. Speyer belongs to the songful Wheeler-Beckett types, with sensitivity for the fragile Humpty-Dumpty-ness of sitting on the edge. But he is also ready to counter with ladders the snake-like course of time. And then in ‘Brewglass’ to finally sip a smooth pint of Guinness in tranquility.”
– Bad Alchemy magazine (Germany) – translated by Kenneth and Kristina