Let Spin – I Am Alien

Discus

For their fifth release, shape-shifting post-jazz quartet Let Spin have linked up with Discus, a fitting collaboration that sees the group attempting to further their desire to meld composition and improvisation in a continuous suite of freewheeling action.

I Am Alien finds the four participants — Chris Williams on saxes and flute, Moss Freed on guitar, Ruth Goller on bass and voice and Finlay Panter on drums — each composing and bringing their particular visions to the group for extensive deconstruction.

The first notable inclusion as the album opens is Ruth’s voice, a sweet tone that accompanies her mellifluous bass circles. The sax, pointillist in its initial approach, draws further circles around the drums, tight intense whorls that drift in and out of orbit. The whip-quick playing of the four is intuitive and they step into gaps left as if it were the most natural thing.

Although the album is made up of eight pieces, the segues are subtle and the movement between moods elusive. From the speedy circles of “Have A Go, Hero” to the sluggish ugliness of “The Ends”, the group recalibrates, sax low and dirty, the bass and guitar insistent and punishing. It is a diverse, growling, angry lumber with the sax working itself into a lather as the others poke and pry.

The stop-start rhythm is so precise on “Blockade” and the tiny gaps are so tight that no light can filter through. They belie sweetness and then trip it up, the sax moving all through the register as the bass stretches and strains while the drums hop and skip. It feels as though they are testing the structural limits of the song, waiting for it to break; and if it doesn’t, they turn their back and try something new. Scuffed and scattered, the drums meander across “Father, Son, High, Line”, dragging the bass and sax with them. They play hide and seek with one another, each player having the chance to spin a web and hopefully catch the others within.

Although the angelic voice is a salve, the rhythms can become quite itchy, constantly evading the listener just as they may have figured out the direction of travel; and then all of a sudden everybody falls down the stairs, taking the listener with them. They move from this overwhelming barrage to a more elusive quality in the blink of an eye and set pastoral flute against roaring guitar which comes on like a squalling argument between two vociferous characters who will never see eye to eye, at least for this thirty seconds.

This constant evolution or revolution in the sound feels perfectly natural and the listener is drawn giddy in their wake until the final track “Stairwell” that is an ambient dream of an ending, lulling you into calmer waters after the frantic pace of the preceding tracks. Once again Let Spin show how much life there is in this post-jazz world, twisting the vaguely familiar into new and compelling shapes.

I Am Alien is s definite push on from 2022’s Thick As Thieves and offers more up with every listen.

-Mr Olivetti-