Music / jazz rock
Review: 137 / Phil Gibbs, Exchange – ‘As fresh as it gets’
It’s forty years since saxophonist Larry Stabbins co-founded the excellent Working Week band, thirty since guitarist Adrian Utley and others launched Portishead, over twenty since Jim Barr and pals released Get The Blessing and drummer Seb Rochford’s Polar Bear was formed.
All four musicians have long been recognised as reliably eclectic performers highly respected in their fields – so what happens when you put all that experience together on one stage?
That question drew a packed crowd into the Exchange‘s stygian gloom, eager to witness the debut performance by 137, the name chosen because it just might be the answer to the meaning of everything.
is needed now More than ever
Phil Gibbs
First, however, came a thoughtful solo improvisation on electric guitar by Phil Gibbs (himself a playing veteran of forty-plus years), beginning with his signature technique of finger-tapping the strings with both hands, creating both intricate waves of patterns and musical chaos.
That was the start of a 45-minute journey moving through conventional chord playing into a surprisingly straightforward fantasia of blues-rock riffs, a searing Hendrix-style passage of overdriven distortion and, finally, a deeply reverberating anthemic finish.
An appreciative audience hailed it for the technical and musical achievement it undoubtedly was.
137: Seb Rochford, Jim Barr, Larry Stabbins
Then the expectation started to build and the room re-filled early as the four headliners came and went from the stage and the Big Reveal approached.
Finally, while ostensibly just twiddling his guitar into action, Adrian Utley began to play and within seconds an explosion of cathartic noise-rock had commenced.
Larry Stabbins alto sax soared over the melee and it subsided into a pulsing bass riff under the melody, the steady drumbeat steering them into an ambient period of two bass guitars and flute.
The beat built with snappy snare drum, flute became bass clarinet, guitar returned and a meditative number began unspooling that, eventually, was swept aside by another total noise onslaught. And so on…
137: Adrian Utley
For all their years of experience, this music was as fresh as it gets. You sensed the musicians were feeling the kind of primal glee in the act of playing together that had made them choose this career in the first place.
One very entertaining drum solo apart, the performance had been a seamless four-way exchange with the focus shifting between players and instruments in an easy and free manner.
It was hard to believe that this was their debut, the band having worked together for two days a year ago and only rehearsed the day before: so well-honed a band identity might be expected to come from years on the road together.
137: Seb Rochford, Jim Barr, Larry Stabbins
When they finished – to the enthusiastic applause they deserved – Larry Stabbins finally spoke to the audience: “That’s all we know, or can think of – for the moment …”
Those were the first and only words to come from the stage all night and they held a promise that would ensure that those expectations will surely carry on.
All photos: Tony Benjamin
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