Monocled Man

“We Drift Meridian”

(Whirlwind Recordings WR4692)

“We Drift Meridian” is the second album by Monocled Man, the trio led by trumpeter Rory Simmons and also featuring the talents of guitarist Chris Montague and drummer Jon Scott.

The group’s Whirlwind Recordings début, the excellent “Southern Drawl”, was an all instrumental affair that drew its inspiration not only from electric era Miles Davis but also from such contemporary trumpeter/composers as Dave Douglas, Cuong Vu and Arve Henriksen. “Southern Drawl” featured a collection of arresting themes and riffs and packed a visceral punch that was particularly reminiscent of the music of Vu’s trio.

“We Drift Meridian” is a very different affair, a conceptual work that also features the vocals of guest artists Ed Begley and Emilia Martensson. Simmons has always harboured a fascination for the human voice and there are moments when the music to be heard on “We Drift Meridian” recalls that of two of the trumpeter’s other projects, the large(ish) ensemble Fringe Magnetic and the trio Eyes of a Blue Dog, both outfits featuring the vocals of Eliasbeth Nygaard Pearson.

Eyes of a Blue Dog also includes the Norwegian drummer and sound artist Terje Evensen and both of the trio’s albums “Rise” (2012) and “Hamartia” (2015) feature extensive electronic soundscaping.
Reviewing “Rise” I described the group’s music as “a mixture of electro acoustic improvised instrumentals and carefully sculpted avant pop songs” and these are elements that also inform “We Drift Meridian”. Under Evensen’s influence Simmons has become increasingly involved with the electronic manipulation of sound and he has recently added keyboards and guitar to his instrumental arsenal. Although “Southern Drawl” included aspects of electronica “We Drift Meridian” takes the process a stage further and is more obviously concerned with sonic landscaping. Indeed the album had its genesis in Simmons’ home studio where the leader produced the ‘sonic environments’ that subsequently provided the frameworks for further collective creativity.

The concept behind “We Drift Meridian” was inspired by the German author Judith Shcalansky and her tome “Pocket Book of Remote Islands”, a non fiction work written in the style of a novel and featuring tales of far flung islands and their current or former inhabitants. A number of this stories sparked Simmons’ imagination and an idea for an album began to emerge. 

Simmons describes the concept behind the album thus;
‘We Drift Meridian’ is inspired by the stories of real people who have lived on remote islands across the world. In a broad sense the lyrics, sound world and artwork draws from this narrative of isolation, solitude and landscape of these archipelagos”.

He continues;
“The history of these people and the islands where they lived is alluded to in an abstract and ambiguous way in the music and lyrics of ‘We Drift Meridian’. The stories have many dimensions and are both folkloric and historical in content. They are stories which resonate with social, political and geographical context”.

Simmons’ precept is illustrated by the opening instrumental “Tromelin”, inspired by a former French colony in the Indian Ocean. A slave ship was wrecked there in 1761 and sixty slaves were abandoned on the island as the French colonialists deployed the lifeboats to save themselves. Left on the island for fifteen years the seven surviving slaves were eventually rescued by a French war ship commanded by Captain Tromelin who subsequently gave his name to the island. With its blend of electronic and acoustic instruments the music depicts the violence and isolation of Tromelin Island with the mournful ring of Simmons’ trumpet cutting a swathe through the spidery guitars, textured synths and mix of humanised and programmed drum beats.

The atmospheric title track features the voice of guest vocalist Martensson singing Simmons’ lyrics, words which are rich in the imagery of solitude and the sea and actually contain the line “We Drift Meridian”. Martensson’s performance is structured like a duet with herself and her fragile and coolly emotive vocals are well matched by the plaintive sound of Simmons’ trumpet. 

“Marie-Betsy is named for Marie-Betsy Rasmussen, the first woman to live in the Antarctic. Married to a Norwegian whaling captain she lived and worked on Deception Island off the Chilean coast in the late 19th century. Here Montague and Scott come more into their own on this pulsating instrumental with its many ebbs and flows.
The piece is thematically linked to the following “Deception Island” which finds guest vocalist Ed Begley singing his own lyrics as he puts his own highly personalised slant on the tale of Marie-Betsy. Begley’s dramatic, uncompromising vocals are matched with some similarly hard edged music as Simmons, Montague and Scott summon up a veritable musical ice storm. 

“Mount Cerberus” combines atmospheric impressionism with the kind of angular riffs and grooves that distinguished Monocled Man’s début. Simmons trumpet soars above the vibrant rhythmic colours and patterns laid down by his colleagues.

“Fiction Afloat” features the vocals of both Martensson and Begley, their vocals combining effectively and also integrating effectively with the core trio’s electro-acoustic musical landscape. h Simmons, on what sounds like flugelhorn, provides another distinctive humanising element.

“Queen Tirza” is inspired by the events that took place on Clipperton Island in the Pacific in the early years of the 20th century. Jointly administered by Mexico and the British Pacific Company the island became forgotten during the Mexican Revolution and in 1917 the only surviving male on the island, the lighthouse keeper Victoriano Alvarez, declared himself king and took control of the female population, systematically raping and terrorising the women. He was eventually murdered by Tirza Rendon, one of his ‘wives’. Shortly afterwards the island was liberated by a US warship and never colonised again. This horrific story is illustrated by edgy music featuring sampled voices, pulsating synths, hard hitting angular grooves and stridently incisive trumpeting with Simmons contributing his most impassioned playing of the set. 

Similarly disturbing events are depicted by “Scott Moorman Adrift”, inspired by a teenager and his two friends who embarked on a boat trip from Hawaii and drifted out into the ocean never to be seen again. Several years later Moorman’s jawbone was found buried in a shallow grave on the remote, uninhabited Pacific island of Taongi, an atoll forming part of the Marshall Islands. Gentler than the preceding “Queen Tirza” the music combines a lyrical melody with a consciously glitchy soundscape, the overall effect of which manages to be both soothing and unsettling. It’s vaguely reminiscent of something that Brian Eno might have attempted. 

The closing two pieces are inspired by locations in Antarctica. “Erebus” depicts the starkness of the mountain of the title and the isolation of the essentially uninhabited continent within which it stands. Montague’s clangorous guitar plays a prominent role alongside Simmons’ dramatic trumpeting as Scott’s drumming again blurs the boundaries between acoustic and electronic sounds.

“Mount Terror” combines an almost joyous trumpet melody with needling, skittering guitar and drum grooves plus a generous amount of electronic soundscaping. Despite the forbidding title it actually ends the album on a comparatively upbeat note.

“We Drift Meridian” is an intriguing album and writing this review has served as something of a history and geography lesson for yours truly!

Musically it’s very different, and markedly less conventionally jazzy, than the group’s début. However it’s to Simmons’ credit that he’s decided not to produce “Southern Drawl Mark Two” and has instead decided to aim for something more individualistic and distinctive.

In this sense “We Drift Meridian” works very well with the plaintive echo of Simmons’ trumpet perfectly encapsulating the eerie isolation of the locations that form the inspiration for this work.
But for all this I find it more difficult to warm to this album than I did to the more conventional “Southern Drawl”. Perhaps it’s because it sounds more like a Simmons solo album then a true group collaboration. The leader’s trumpet is the primary instrument and his electronic soundscaping is also a key component in the album’s sound. This time round the roles of Montague and Scott are less well defined - with neither featuring as soloists in the conventional manner both are assimilated into the overall fabric of the music as a whole, with both becoming a little anonymous as a result.

Both vocalists acquit themselves well and bring something new to the Monocled Man sound but this means that the group end up sounding closer to Eyes of a Blue Dog than to their “Southern Drawl” incarnation. Tellingly Nygaard Pearson has appeared as a guest vocalist at some of Monocled Man’s live shows – perhaps the demarcation lines between the two trios will continue to become increasingly fluid.

“We Drift Meridian” emphatically isn’t a jazz record in the conventional sense although there is still much here for the jazz listener to enjoy. It’s also possible that Simmons may be able reach out to a wider constituency with this masterful amalgam of acoustic and electronic sounds, assuming that potential listeners don’t find the album concept too esoteric.

Full marks to Simmons for coming up with something original and distinctive – although my personal preference is always likely to be the more conventional “Southern Drawl”.

It’s all a very long way removed from his ‘day job’ with Jamie Cullum, that’s for sure.

Forthcoming Monocled Man live dates include;

27 October 2016 - Nursery, London

18 November 2016 - The Vortex, London (part of the EFG London Jazz Festival)

     

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