Four years after 2004's Sweetness of the Water, where former drum'n'bass duo Spring Heel Jack (John Coxon and Ashley Wales) began playing their own instruments and enlisting collaborators to realize their own electronic jazz vision, they return to Thirsty Ear's Blue Series Songs and Themes. This time out, Wales works only with samples, while Coxon, plays guitar, violin, glockenspiel, and bass. The rest of the cast is a curious and exciting one: Vanguard jazz legend John Tchicai plays saxophones and bass clarinet, Orphy Robinson is on vibes, American ex-pat Roy Campbell plays various trumpets and flute, and the rhythm section consists of double bassist John Edwards (Evan Parker, James Hardway, Steve Reid, Paul Lovens), and drummer Tony Marsh (who has played with everyone from Kim Fowley to Mike Westbrook). The guests include J Spaceman on electric guitar on a pair of tracks, and drummers Mark Sanders and Rupert Clervaux on others. In the title lies the key to the album. It is a jazz record, but it is also a classical one; it is a moody, subdued, beautifully lyric and sometimes tense series of 12 charted tunes and takes.

1		Church Music
2		Dereks
3		With Out Words
4		Eupen
5		For Paul Rutherford
6		Folk Players
7		Silvertone
8		Clara
9		1,000 Yards
10		Antiphon
11		At Long Last
12		Garlands

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