Music / contemporary jazz
Review: Run Logan Run/Annie Gardiner, Strange Brew
When Run Logan Run launched their previous record (For A Brief Moment We Could Smell The Flowers), also at Strange Brew, they said they were continuing to explore new directions and collaborations. To make the point they brought on a vocalist to perform a couple of songs for their encore. For a band that had begun as an electronically enhanced instrumental duo of drums and sax it certainly opened fresh possibilities and their latest Worm Discs album Nature Will Take Care of You reveals a raft of new musical ideas.
Jo Kelley (bass) and Annie Gardiner (pic: Tony Benjamin)
That guest vocalist was Annie Gardiner, who figures on the new album and who opened the launch gig with a set of her own songs accompanied by double bass player Jo Kelley. Drawn from her 2021 debut album Bloodletting – but stripped back from that recording’s lavish orchestration – there was a sense of pervading menace about the material, heightened by her perfect vocal control. Not all singer/songwriters are great singers, but Annie certainly is, and not all of them are great songwriters either. There’s a difference between writing lyrics and creating a song and the musical creativity in numbers like Anaesthetic or Things I Didn’t Do Well showed that Annie Gardiner can definitely write a good song.
Beth O’Lanahan (bass), Dan Messore (guitar), Andrew Neil Hayes (saxophone). (pic: Tony Benjamin)
There was a mic waiting for her on stage when Run Logan Run appeared but they began as an instrumental four piece with bass player Beth O’Lanahan and guitarist Dan Messore joining drummer Matt Brown and saxophonist Andrew Neil Hayes. They kicked off with the grinding post-prog of Growing Pains, a heavyweight riff with occasional moments of calm soon swept aside. The impact of the bass was almost physical, a super-solid anchor at the heart of things, while washes of guitar crunched under the hawking sax. By contrast Where Did You Go? had a lighter, almost jaunty jazz touch with its bouncing bassline and skittering drums.
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Annie Gardiner with Run Logan Run (pic: Tony Benjamin)
Annie joined them for Project Pigeon Missile, a briskly slinking beat and melancholy sax feeding into a bigger echoing soundscape. With her hushed vocals added to the mix a distinctly nu-Bristol kind of sound emerged. Then it was a return to an earlier RLR style with the modulating sax variations of Breaking Through tightly synched to the drums and an undertone of emergent guitar. Once again the precision and clarity of Beth’s bass playing drew the sound and the rhythm together impressively.
Andrew Neil Hayes (pic: Tony Benjamin)
In this larger format the core duo could allow themselves more space and the arrangements themselves were generally more open than their very intense earlier Run Logan Run recordings. Much rested on Andrew’s shoulders as the sax led both the melody and tone of each number and his flexible approach allowed anything from the mellifluously lyrical to a raucous squawk. With Dan’s guitar to play off the two could really let rip in numbers like the epic Searching For God In Strangers’ Faces, a King Crimson out-take for the 21st Century.
Matt Brown (pic: Tony Benjamin)
And, of course, Matt Brown’s drumming was an essential treat, thundering along or pulling suddenly back, picking out the tunes and catching the phrasing from the sax. When they came back to do a well-deserved encore he even played a four-to-the-floor house groove for what seemed to be a Flamenco-based free jam. Overall it was evident that while the Run Logan Run sound has become more elaborated – there were 11 musicians involved in recording Nature Will Take Care Of You – the essential qualities and basic style of their music remains very much their own. And very much what their energetic fan base approved of, evidently.
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