Illusion

Avant jazz-song at its very best, performed by a world class ensemble led by Julie Tippetts (one of the UK's finest vocalists from the last 50 years) and multi-instrumentalist Martin Archer, their first album together for 6 years, and their most ambitious work to date. The two CDs can be listened to separately and in any order. Each volume offers a different perspective on a common theme.

'Circle Of Whispers' is a sequence of 13 separate and contrasting songs, performed by various small groups drawn from the JTMA Ensemble, plus some guest musicians. Each song details a character / situation whose presence is hinted at in the companion disc. The result is a powerful and often intensely beautiful record.

By contrast 'Illusion Suite', although split into 7 tracks, is a single piece of music which runs without break for 75 minutes. The music is structured like a DJ mix - with elements appearing, reappearing, and transforming throughout. Extensive use of chance procedures was made in arriving at the finished form of the electronic music which forms the base layer of the piece, over which we hear both the ensemble in full throttle and Julie's complex vocal arrangements. Occasionally the music reaches passages of great - almost overwhelming - density, and periodically the 140 bpm rhythms collapse into abstraction.

Julie Tippetts: voice
Martin Archer: keyboards, electronics, radio waves, all saxophones and clarinets