Fourth Page - Along The Weak Rope

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5...according to our Phil on Thu 20 Oct, 2011.

This is more like it. I'm hooked from the start! First a bit of info... They're a quartet from London City featuring various folks you can read about in the press release. What you get though is 6 tracks of jazz inspired Sylvian-esque sparse minimalism. The percussion is superb and the production of the drums (and everything else for that matter) is excellent. It's essentially percussion, piano, some strange noises hither and thither and occasional breathy vocals. That's about it. The arrangements though are superb and that, coupled with the excellent production makes for a really excellent sounding album. The vocals are very Sylvian esque... light and breathy and sparse.... as is everything in fact but it all fits together so well you'd be hard pushed not to enjoy this if you're a fan of experimental jazz. The album title is the stand out track with the hushed vocals, shuffly drums and moodier than thou feeling. Excellent!!

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Heralding mainly from London, Fourth Page came together informally in
2010. The members had played together in various combinations but
not as a quartet. Carolyn Hume and Paul May had played as a duo for the
last ten years releasing ve critically acclaimed albums on Leo Records,
Peter Marsh and Paul May have played together in various groups as well
as recently providing the live rhythm section for Petra Jean Phillipson.
Charlie Beresford (known in the main for his solo work and studio
production) came into the equation after a recent recording that he, Paul
May and Duke Garwood made under the guise of Abdon Liberty. The
decision to take things further came very soon after the rst notes were
played, indeed those rst notes have ended up on what has become
their debut album, ‘Along The Weak Rope’ due for release later this year.
Having tentatively sent out a few pre-release copies of the album to
people who they thought might like it the response has been more than
favourable. One of the people who the record was sent to was Fiona
Talkington of Radio 3’s Late Junction. She replied with this.
“...beautifully produced doing justice to all the amazing sounds, and I
love the Hawksmoor, damp, cobwebby feel . I thought it was perhaps the
sort of song cycle Schubert might have written if he'd been around
today. The anguish of Winterreise with its chinks of light....Sylvian too.”
Which is as an articulate description of their improvised song scape as
they could have wished for. Their impressionistic, hushed shadings lurk
in the darker corners, very English but also faintly Nordic at times. You
could mention folk, jazz, free improvisation or 20th century classical
music as reference points, but that’s only because that’s roughly the kind
of thing the band members get up to elsewhere. You could mention
David Sylvian, or Nick Drake at his sparsest or the Spontaneous Music
Ensemble at their folkiest. You could mention that everything the band
does is improvised, and often entirely acoustic.
But is describing their sound important? Probably not. But then none of
this is really. Have a listen instead.