East London jazz septet Kansas Smitty's introduces us to their splendid latest work.
The single “Riders” feels like an ascetic walk through a prosaic gateway to a minefield of unsettling thoughts and doubts. This track, inspired by European mysticism, at times sounds as if Wayne Shorter and Wes Montgomery were playing in the post-rock years. After the main theme of picturesque desolation, “Riders” stretches out through the guitar wanderings accompanied by the rhythmic guides, and by the end is again filled with the mournful, lingering beauty of wind instruments. This is a play of gray rainfall where the musicians of Kansas Smitty’s measure a sad universal quagmire.
