October 16, 2015

Matthew Halsall & The Gondwana Orchestra - Into Forever [2015]


Halsall takes his interesting brand of harp filled, Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders influenced jazz compositions and goes vocal on 5 out of the 11 tracks with the help of Josephine Oniyama and Bryony Jarman-Pinto, who sings on the last track. Oniyama is quite a formidable vocalist, with a soulful style that works great with the spiritual jazz that Halsall and the Gondwana Orchestra bring - "Badder Weather" is a moving performance. Vocal jazz is, an unexpected switch from Halsall, as all his past albums are instrumental, but it is done well. On Into Forever,  The long improvisation filled tracks are mostly gone, in favor of focused, relatively short statements; some of which could even be characterized as interludes ("Dawn Horizon", "Cushendun"), with the longest track clocking in at only 6 minutes and 22 seconds.