Artists connected to the famous British label Gondwana will visit Palác Akropolis in Prague. Founded in 2008 in Manchester by trumpeter, DJ and composer Matthew Halsall, it brings together musicians who freely draw on the tradition of modern jazz. The label includes the likes of Hania Rani and the Portico Quartet. The Gondwana label showcase will feature Vega Trails – a project, which brings together members of Portico Quartet and Mammal Hands – as well as the new duo Kessoncoda and the Paradise Cinema, project founded by another Portico Quartet member Jack Wyllie.
Vega Trails is the new project of double bass player Milo Fitzpatrick, known from the line-up of the cult London ensemble Portico Quartet. During the lockdown pandemonium, he hit upon music that revels in open space and sparseness, qualities he found on records by Charlie Haden, for example. But he also knew from the start that he needed a similarly attuned partner, which he found in saxophonist Jordan Smart, who plays with Mammal Hands and Sunda Arc. However, on his debut Vega Trails album, Tremors in the Static, Smart plays other wind instruments, including the Persian end flute Ney. Together with the double bass, a new, magical sound world is born on Vega Trails.
Drummer Tom Sunney and pianist Filip Sowa form the West London duo Kessoncoda, naturally blending acoustic tradition and electronica to build on the work of their labelmates such as Portico Quartet and GoGo Penguin. But you can hear on their tracks that they also like Squarepusher, Radiohead and Clark, their music delivering heightened cinematic emotions and soothed melodic passages. They record their music in Tom's studio in the garden and this summer they released their excellent debut album Outerstate.
Another member of the Portico Quartet, multi-instrumentalist Jack Wyllie, performs under the name of Paradise Cinema. He's accompanied on the project by Khadim Mbaye, Tons Sambe and Laurence Pike and together they explore echoes of African Mbalax rhythms on their eponymous debut album recorded in Dakar. The current record, Returning, Dream, comes four years on and sees the quartet drawing on various forms of world music, ambient and minimalism from the likes of Jon Hassell, Terry Riley, Don Cherry and Midori Takada. Physics and science fiction are also inspirations.
During the afternoon, there will also be a workshop with Daniel Halsall, co-founder of the Gondwana label, and the evening's label showcase will be rounded off in style on the Small Stage by Japanese DJ Mari, who focuses on dreamy, psychedelic or downright surreal music from her homeland, which she will offer in her exclusive vinyl set.
