Steve Buckley/Chris Batchelor
Life As We Know It
BDV9925

Steve Buckley, saxophones, whistles, clarinets and percussion; Chris Batchelor, trumpet, tenor horn, tuba and percussion; Paul Clarvis, drums and percussion; Mark Sanders, drums and percussion

1. Dark Horses
2. Decisions Decisions
3. Les Vignes
4. Sliver Moon
5. The Art of Flying Backwards
6. Pitter Patter
7. The Shortest Day
8. Toon Town
9. Deadpan Alley
10. And Peace Thereafter
11. Life As We Know It

Reedsman Steve Buckley and trumpeter Chris Batchelor are from the generation of jazz musicians coming out of the influential 80s big band Loose Tubes. On this gloriously original multilayered recording, Buckley and Batchelor create loops and improvisations enhanced by samples and hard disk manipulations by Pete Beckmann as well as percussion support by Mark Sanders and Paul Clarvis. But the music also puts the focus on acoustic improvisation, and like Django Bates who they have both worked with, continue in their own way where Loose Tubes left off, absorbing anything from North/West African music to Balkan folk melodies through to Ellington in a colourful explosion of sounds.

'Buckley and Batchelor join Django Bates and Iain Ballamy as really important names in 90s jazz and make this the unexpected highlight of the year so far. "Life as we know it" moves British jazz forward in a very accessible yet inventive way.' Peter Bacon - The Birmingham Post, CD of the year 1999