Sugarwork,
Sugarwork
own label
Paul Harrison is one of the Scottish jazz scene’s most versatile musicians. As a pianist he’s as likely to turn up playing swing classics as he is the music of Brazilian composer Egberto Gismonti and on electronic keyboards he’s equally fascinated by organ grooves and creating new sounds.
It’s in this last endeavour that his group Sugarwork finds him. Joined by three other restless spirits – saxophonist Phil Bancroft, guitarist Graeme Stephen and drummer Stuart Brown – Harrison fashions and manipulates music that’s by turns robust and forthright, gently probing, strongly melodic and intriguingly atmospheric.
The opening Habit Control is a blast of tough directness set against fidgety rhythms and while over its nine companion pieces the boldness ebbs and flows and gives way to tenderness and vulnerability, with beautifully inventive playing from Bancroft and Stephen, the sense of a quest for new things to say and different tones to say them in is ever-present.
Harrison didn’t rush this, the group’s first album and that shows on attention to detail where even the final fade out has imaginative ticks and clicks. Even so, it’ll be fascinating to hear where the next set of adventures takes this intrepid quartet.
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules here