Following their incendiary performance at the 2006 Cheltenham Jazz Festival ‘Fraud’ have rather become the media darlings of the jazz press. With a major feature in the February 2007 edition of Jazzwise and with their eponymous debut album about to be unleashed all should be well in Fraudworld.

However, the buzz created by their Cheltenham appearance and by several successful gigs in the capital doesn’t seem to have reached out into the provinces. Only around fifty adventurous listeners found their way to Warwick University to witness this gig but Fraud are not the kind of band to compromise their music and those of us who made the commitment were rewarded with two typically intense and full on sets.

I first encountered Fraud’s leaders James Allsopp (reeds) and Tim Giles (drums) playing in pianist Richard Fairhurst’s sextet at the 2003 Cheltenham festival. That was the seed that encouraged me to try out Fraud last year but I certainly wasn’t expecting the electronic maelstrom I encountered.

At Warwick obviously the spirit of surprise wasn’t going to be there for me again but I was interested to see how the band had developed in the intervening months.

Some of the material from Cheltenham featured again but was treated differently and there was also a good deal of new material written (or “de-composed” as they like to put it) by Allsopp and Giles.

As a group Fraud are rock band loud and bring together ingredients of jazz, rock and electronics in an edgy, uncompromising urban stew that is always simmering dangerously and sometimes boiling over. From jazz comes the collective spirit of improvisation and the peerless technique (particularly of Allsopp). From rock comes the dynamics, plus the volume of Stian Westerhus and his extraordinary baritone guitar and the twin drum assault of Tim Giles and Ben Reynolds. Electronics are a vital part of the mix with Westerhus’s array of pedals and other gizmos, Giles’ electronic drums and Philip Hochstrate’s electric keyboard and matching computer.

Fraud commenced by segueing together two of the numbers they had played at Cheltenham. The titles, “Slug” followed by “Linctus” come from the world of Indie rock but the music comes from somewhere else entirely. Firstly it combines heavy metal style guitar with Albert Ayler like tenor sax wailing. Mighty riffs then contrast with quiet eerie passages featuring bowed guitar, spacey keyboards, and Reynolds exotic percussion (Tibetan bowls, shakers etc.). Hochstrate’s keyboards then pick out another riff shadowed by Giles’ electric drums before Allsopp and Westerhus return to deliver ferocious unison lines against a background of thunderous double drumming.

Another segue follows with “Insect” (also featured at Cheltenham) merging with the more recent “Clatter” which is scheduled to open the new album. “Insect” is a feature for the melancholic, other worldly sound of Westerhus’ bowed guitar. The warped violin like sound conjures up images first of the folk music his native Norway then of Led Zeppelin as the bowing becomes more percussive. This gives way to “Clatter” and the percolating percussion of Reynolds stalking Allsopp’s tenor before the boys coalesce with another massive riff.

Another piece new to me “Laundry Theatre” closes the first set. Allsopp takes up the baritone saxophone and is shadowed first by Giles and then by Reynolds before Westerhus effects laden guitar lays the foundations for the band’s most monstrous riff yet. Hochstrate then picks up the baton as Westerhus guitar approximates the noise of a tube train and the drummers hammer hell out of their kits. It’s brutal but exhilarating and more like “sitting in front of a train” than ever.

It seemed to me that there was, if anything a greater degree of improvisation than there had been at Cheltenham but the power, volume and intensity were still there. Fraud have a looser structure than Acoustic Ladyland or Polar Bear with whom they are often compared (not least by me) but although they share an attitude with those bands Fraud’s music is becoming significantly different, with more of an improvisatory edge.

A brief hiatus delayed the second half as Allsopp attempted to find his missing keyboard player. Not surprisingly he was in the bar. After these fun and games proceedings actually commenced quietly with the new composition “Mystery Box”. This was brief and atmospheric, almost ambient and featured Allsopp on bass clarinet. He really is a fine all round reed player.

Allsopp and Giles have a love of wordplay in their titles. “Giraffiti” was introduced as the “art of writing on tall buildings”. It featured a deranged electric piano solo from the German Hochstrate (this really is an international band) and another killer metal style riff.

The wordplay continued with another new title “Periferole” described by Allsopp as “the edge of a dessert”. It was the first night of the tour and I don’t think even Reynolds had heard that one before. It certainly tickled him and he sat at his kit laughing helplessly for quite some time before the music could continue. Giles got in on the act wearing a T-shirt with the legend “ANNFRANKSINATRA”. I didn’t get round to asking him if he found it in a Trashcan.

However, I digress. The music featured tenor saxophone, chattering percussion courtesy of both drummers and Westerhus picking out the bass lines. With no bass player in the group the bass function is shared around which keeps things interesting.

Allsopp is on a roll now. Next up is “Glasses”-“You see through them, or drink out of them”. In any event the music is tense and brooding again featuring tenor sax plus ambient electronics.

Until now the second half had been quieter than the first but there was a sense of tension waiting to be released. This release came on “Wrongbrain”, one of the stand out numbers at Cheltenham. Again this was a tour de force with Allsopp’s baritone sax duetting first with Giles then with Reynolds before Hochstrate took up the soloist’s role. Another walloping riff underpinned an awesome baritone solo from Allsopp as he took the instrument into registers it probably wasn’t meant to go. Reynolds and Giles then let a drum battle commence before the big riff finally returned to see us home.

A brief rendition of another Cheltenham tune “Guzzle” completed the proceedings with Allsopp back on tenor. I seem to remember this being a big feature for Westerhus at Cheltenham. Here it seemed strangely truncated and that was the end of that.

The small audience clamoured for an encore but there weren’t quite enough of us and it wasn’t forthcoming. Nevertheless we couldn’t complain at what we’d seen. Committed, uncompromising, thought provoking music played with skill and presented with a sense of humour. “Serious Fun” as Peter Hammill would put it and strangely enough some of Fraud’s riffs reminded me of Van Der Graaf Generator or King Crimson. You could conceivably head bang to Fraud albeit in some rather peculiar time signatures.

Some of their more ambient/impressionist passages reminded me of the experiments of 70’s “Krautrock” but given the young ages of Allsopp and Giles (twenty five and twenty six respectively) they may not have been influenced by prog rock at all. However, they do cite sixties free jazz icon Albert Ayler as a major influence. Despite his youth Giles has been on the scene a long time. Something of a child prodigy he was bunking off school to gig with Fairhurst at the age of thirteen.

It was unfortunate tonight that numbers had been so limited and that more students hadn’t been tempted to the gig as adventurous rock listeners would find much to enjoy here. However, the Arts Centre and the University seem to be entirely separate entities.

The other unfortunate thing was that the band had no copies of their album with them and this was the first date of what is nominally a promotional tour. The album is due to be released on Babel, a label with an admirable musical policy and which has released some classic albums by Polar Bear, Acoustic Ladyland, Richard Fairhurst, Julian Arguelles, Huw Warren and many others. Unfortunately their organisational and promotional skills don’t always match the quality of the music so tonight we all went home empty handed.

Still the album is due very shortly. Personally I can’t wait. It could be one of the records of the year.

For details of further tour dates and to order the impending album go to http://www.fraudmusic.co.uk

See also http://www.jazzwise.com - feature/interview and album review in the February 2007 edition.

This was Jazz Coventry’s final concert for the winter season, with the spring programme about to be announced. Go to http://www.jazzcov.co.uk for further details.

blog comments powered by Disqus