Home » Jazz Articles » Album Review » trioVD: Fill It Up With Ghosts

417

trioVD: Fill It Up With Ghosts

By

Sign in to view read count
trioVD: Fill It Up With Ghosts
While Oliver Weindling's Babel label has recorded some of Britain's most lyrical and mellifluous artists, including vocalist Christine Tobin, guitarist Phil Robson and the post-bop mutationist band Polar Bear, it has also, true to its name, championed some of the country's most iconoclastic noise-jazz outfits, notably Acoustic Ladyland and Led Bib.



Leeds-based trioVD, though no stranger to gentle neo-ambient beauty, mostly inhabits the latter category, its six feet firmly planted in high-decibel thrash attacks combining the outer reaches of free improv with beats and ambiences borrowed from heavy rock. The magnificent Fill It Up With Ghosts is Babel's most outré high-energy release since Acoustic Ladyland's Camouflage (2003), and in trioVD the label has another band of massive potential, great swathes of which are already realized on this first album.



Formed in 2006, trioVD is guitarist Chris Sharkey, saxophonist Christophe de Bezenac and drummer Chris Bussey. All three musicians are closely associated with the Leeds Improvised Music Association, and have collectively worked with a varied range of artists including drummer Jack DeJohnette, saxophonist Ken Vandermark, poet/bandleader Henry Rollins, and the adventurous classical-contemporary ensemble, London Sinfonietta (an early adopter of the ECM label's rock, jazz and classical synthesist, Heiner Goebbels).



The trio are also active in metal rock. Sharkey, since 2009 simultaneously a member of Acoustic Ladyland, has worked with death metallers Bilbao Syndrome; Bussey and de Bezenac with Bilbao's close cousin Minghe Morte. De Bezenac is also involved with traditional and experimental gamelan groups.



TrioVD's diverse influences, and the virtuosic skills of its three player/composers, combine to create music of depth and, even at its most full-on, of subtlety and nuance. Whatever it is, Fill It Up With Ghosts is most assuredly not punk jazz. "Returns," "Rash" and "To Whom?" feature the band at its pile-driving, heavy lifting extreme. "Kesh" and "Sixes And Sevens" include extended passages of more pastoral, even limpid delicacy. The title track and "Cow Dun" are informed by the spikier end of modern gamelan music. All the tunes are meticulously arranged, with as much attention given to overdubs and textural layering as to the core "live" performances. At times, the resulting riot of sound begs the question: who is playing what? The question is soon forgotten, as the music takes hold.



TrioVD's name carries unfortunate resonances, but actually has more seemly roots. The group first played together, in 2006, on February 14—Valentine's Day in Britain, when lovers exchange cards and flowers—and the session was saved as "trioVD." Fill It Up With Ghosts is a gigantic bunch of flowers, some of them thorny, others picture postcard pretty, and an extraordinary debut.

Track Listing

Returns; Kesh; Sixes And Sevens; To Whom?; Rash; Fill It Up With Ghosts; Cow Dun.

Personnel

Chris Sharkey: guitar, bass; Christophe de Bezenac: saxophone, effects, voice; Chris Bussey: drums.

Album information

Title: Fill It Up With Ghosts | Year Released: 2009 | Record Label: Babel Label

Comments

Tags


For the Love of Jazz
Get the Jazz Near You newsletter All About Jazz has been a pillar of jazz since 1995, championing it as an art form and, more importantly, supporting the musicians who create it. Our enduring commitment has made "AAJ" one of the most culturally important websites of its kind, read by hundreds of thousands of fans, musicians and industry figures every month.

You Can Help
To expand our coverage even further and develop new means to foster jazz discovery and connectivity we need your help. You can become a sustaining member for a modest $20 and in return, we'll immediately hide those pesky ads plus provide access to future articles for a full year. This winning combination will vastly improve your AAJ experience and allow us to vigorously build on the pioneering work we first started in 1995. So enjoy an ad-free AAJ experience and help us remain a positive beacon for jazz by making a donation today.

More

Fiesta at Caroga
Afro-Caribbean Jazz Collective
Fellowship
David Gibson
Immense Blue
Olie Brice / Rachel Musson / Mark Sanders

Popular

Get more of a good thing!

Our weekly newsletter highlights our top stories, our special offers, and upcoming jazz events near you.