Music / contemporary classical
Three is the magic number for composer Daniel Inzani
Musician/bandleader/composer Daniel Inzani has got an album out, but which Inzani will it feature?
The avant-classical Spindle Ensemble one? The grooving Ethio-funk Tezeta one? The sprawling, genre-defying big band one?
Actually Selected Worlds has all three, plus solo piano, piano trio and a proper-job string quartet to boot!
is needed now More than ever
All on one album? No – it’s a triple vinyl release (phew!) with each disc representing a different component of Inzani’s creative portfolio. And it’s a corker, good enough for The Guardian to give it five stars and make it their Contemporary Album of the Month. Nice work, Dan.
Daniel first emerged in Bath with festival-friendly collective The Mandibles, progressing to the old-school ska of Count Bobo.
Moving to Bristol he became a founder member of the creative Bloom Collective, from which emerged Tezeta, his eight-piece, twin drummer fusion of prog, jazz and Ethiopian funk.
With that band doing so well it was a surprising contrast in 2017 when he launched the Spindle Ensemble, an all-acoustic neo-classical quintet playing his own form of chamber music.
After years of laboriously working at the piano as a self-taught musician and composer the 2020 lockdown allowed him to begin experimenting with midi software, a powerful tool that helped expand his compositional range. One result was the string quartet piece that makes up part of Form, disc one of Selected Worlds.
The triple album came out on September 3 – or 9/3 as they say in America – and this wasn’t a random date for Dan: “Yes – it’s no coincidence. It’s the third day of the ninth month, the three discs were recorded over nine days, three days for each one. The second two discs were actually done on consecutive days,” he explained.
Three, it seems, is the magic number.
Form, as the name suggests, has a selection of Dan’s formal compositions, all acoustic, including solo piano and piano trio music with distinct echoes of Satie and Ravel.
Disc Two is called Lore (“as in folklore”) and is ambitiously cinematic – Daniel describes it as “an abstract soundtrack to a film that doesn’t exist, where each piece is a theme that could describe a character, place or scene”.
Play, the third disc, is naturally the most playful of the three. The eight-strong line-up recalls Tezeta with its upbeat grooves, funk-tastic horns and plenty of lively solo playing.
The music got an impressive preview (and a great reception) on the D&B Soundscape Stage at this year’s WOMAD. The stage full of musicians covered all aspects of Daniel’s music, from the lush cinematics of Sleepwalking and part of the String Quartet No 1 to the Zappa-ish big band sound of IC YANG!
By contrast, Daniel’s upcoming performance at the Hidden Notes festival will be a simple piano trio – though they will also present music from all three discs, albeit in new arrangements.
“Essentially for every gig I’m kind of curating the music and line-up to suit the event.” Daniel explains. “I have a wide pool to draw on – so many brilliant musicians, whoever’s around – whereas Tezeta and Spindle were always fixed groups of people.”
So how’s the next album coming along? It was meant to be a facetious question, given the work behind Selected Worlds, but of course the ever-prolific Daniel had an answer.
“Well I do have half of a solo piano album recorded, some of them ideas that have come off the album, and I feel like I’ve got a few more piano pieces brewing that could work as solo numbers,” he said.
“I might put something out next year … But I’m just going to ride the wave of this one first.”
Given the enthusiastic reception from both critics and audiences it feels like that wave still has a long, long way to go.
Daniel Inzani appears at Hidden Notes festival in Stroud on September 21.
Selected Worlds is released by Hidden Notes and Tardigrade Records and is available through Bandcamp
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