THE GONDWANA ORCHESTRA
Genres: World Fusion, Vocal Jazz • United Kingdom

The Manchester trumpeter, composer and all-round northern new-music enabler Matthew Halsall might be a man with the open ears and eclectic energy to run a broad-based contemporary record label - but he's also a disciple of the meditative 1960s music of John and Alice Coltrane, which significantly steers his own ventures. Halsall's personal projects often come close to the Coltranes' most reflective later works, but his Gondwana Orchestra (including regular partners Rachel Gladwin on harp and soulful local saxophonist Nat Birchall) is an expanded band featuring Japan's zither-like koto and the haunting sound of the bansuri flute, which creatively broadens the palette toward a far eastern-inspired world-music. From the McCoy Tyneresque piano vamp, soprano-sax theme and streaming harp counterpoint of the title track, to the spreading-ripples harp intro and quivering flute of Far Away Place, or the harp embracing Birchall's bell-clear soprano tone on the soft-swinging Falling Water, it all read more...