Short Reviews [Findlestilts - 2024 - "Ballade Imaginaire"]

In February 2023 Bloodcog started work ‘Exoskeleton’. The idea was that Fran Bass (electric bass) Richard Harding (chapman stick) and Richard Harrison (drums/percussion) would go into the studio and start improvising, with Phil Hargreaves (flute/sax) and Pete Smyth (electronics) then pulling those recordings to pieces and adding additional layers. However, they ended up with way too much material, so instead Phil divided the recordings into what he thought would work best for Bloodcog, and added reeds/EWI to the rest, mixing them more like a conventional band album, rather than Bloodcog’s power electronics/improv approach. This means that Findlestilts are actually 4/5 of Bloodcog, with just Pete Smyth missing. There is no doubt I have been listening far more to this style of music in recent years, heavily improvised, RIO, way out of the mainstream and the more I listen to it there is no doubt the more I get a great deal from it, even though I am fully aware that most people would run a mile from what they could only discern as a racket being produced by a zoo of animates who have been given rein to provide whatever they want with no concept of form, time or melody. Each of these musicians are able to go off at complete tangents to everyone else, yet somehow combine to create something which is both inspiring and eclectic in the extreme. It is difficult, if not impossible, to say who is even leading the band as in Harrison they have a drummer who refuses to conform and is literally all over the place, playing every inch of the kit (seemingly all at once), Bass is following her own music, while in the middle is Harding, and then Hargreaves is providing his own solos over the top. This is many ways is quite reminiscent of some of Robin Taylor’s most adventurous work with TFU, jazz and progressive music being thrown together with no thought for the outcome, no limit to possibilities or the band’s own imagination. This is not music for the faint hearted, but if you are adventurous then this may well be for you.