BEN VINCE & JACOB SAMUEL - ‘I’LL STICK AROUND’
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First Terrace Records present a new LP from Ben Vince & Jacob Samuel. I’ll Stick Around sees the two prolific collaborators meet on record for the first time for a series of duets.
Having explored various musical avenues and projects including collaborations with the likes of Mica Levi, Klein, Joy Orbison, Charles Hayward and Bianca Scout, this record finds the pair peeling away from electronic composition and manipulation, instead pursuing and capturing the raw tonal possibilities of their chosen instruments.
I'll Stick Around finds itself in the sphere of free jazz whilst demonstrating a love of pop records that is an undercurrent of their respective releases. With moments of drama and exaltation, the absence of electronics give the piano and the saxophone - the only two instruments on the recording - space for melodic expression and entanglement. Whilst retaining the integrity of unedited, improvised recordings, the sonic environment is turned into a third element, toying with the mind’s ear as the shape of piano notes elongate, shadows of saxophone flutter into earshot and are lost again, and microphones are moved mid-take, allowing new frequencies to blossom around the instruments.
An album rich in musicality and feeling, I’ll Stick Around is a testament to this duo’s synergy in collaboration, a record quite unlike anything either musician has released so far. With punkish virtuosity, Ben & Jacob present a turbulent sonic adventure, yet one with moments of inner serenity.
Jacob Samuel is a multi-disciplinary artist whose work examines noise as symbiotically influencing and being influenced by the behaviour of synthetic and organic structures. A practice of applying this idea to the developments of the current industrial revolution and how this affects the objects and products of communication.
Ben’s previous output can be found on Blank Editions, CURL, Hessle Audio, Where To Now? and 33 33, with each release meeting growing critical acclaim & expanding his constellation of collaborators. Pitchfork called his sound “a swirling cauldron of shrieks and thumps, where the histories of free jazz, early experimental composition, and leftfield club music all cook down together”, while The Guardian was moved to give his 2018 album Assimilation a glowing 4/5 review.