Blair/Huber surface

Laconic leitmotifs transformed

It’s hard to sound different. Blair/Huber make that process look easy.

Saxophonist Darius Blair’s duo project with guitarist Niko Huber is fresh and happening.

And you feel this is only the start.

A case of introductions in the dark to riff on the title of a 1989 Andy Sheppard record.

While I am not in the business of trying to stuff a quart into a pint pot while reaching for an apt figure of speech, Blair even does sound like Sheppard in his younger days. But – all hail, notwithstanding your Lordship – he doesn’t so much slice into the hearty pie of the great Bristolian’s sound nowadays. I am not kiddin ‘ee.

Huber is like Ben Monder a bit. Other far more random comparisons are available. Pluck one or two if at a loose end, dear reader, while you sort out your wardrobe for the day: ah, a Vini Reilly T-shirt and characterful plastic bag large enough for an LP as fetching accoutrement prior to your latest Durutti Column listening binge to get in the mood of all this. Makes a whole lotta sense & far less eccentric than dressing as a rear admiral down your local war memorial.

Forgive the hyperbole. Is it so wrong to decide to uncurb your enthusiasm once in a while. I’ll leave that hanging in the air.

Lighter with duels: Not one to boogie-woogie along to, admittedly. But more than a case of fancy that or indeed crikey, wtf or knock me down with a feather, Nils Frahm’s very non-generic Leiter has come up with a good ‘un here without any need for me to brown nose too much. Or at least: more than usual. After all given this is not marketing copy or an advertorial. The cheque isn’t in the post.

It is a German indie home to Anoushka Shankar, Ganavya and Moses Yoofee Trio if stumped as to what on earth the name refers to without recourse to energetic Googling.

There’s an ache and raw emotion to the interplay and exploration of taut riffs and moods not afraid to draw on a bluesy rockistry especially when Huber opens up. He bowls the odd googly but doesn’t resort to sledging.

Do the Germans even play cricket, I wonder. Not entirely sure to be frank. Very possibly not much. But it could be wurst. The intrepid duo sound pared back and in for a long innings some time I suppose if they have a few more tunes in the can. But there is more going on than you can gain on a first listen to this wafer thin EP.

The more you delve into their world the more the simple sounds morph into the complex.
They fool you into discovering a world that isn’t literally sound.

What they do share beyond that Mingus-like riff that dominates ‘Nothing Personal’ to begin with before spooling off, especially with the more progressively inclined approaches, is a spare less-is-more rawness that strips out extra fluff and doesn’t overly noodle.

Not that there’s anything wrong with a bit of noodling I hasten to add.
Some would prefer the posher term, improvising. As a word it is a bit more woody, perhaps – kind sirrah – you’d care to agree if off duty from being chivalrous and sitting around, resting your lance, pondering such niceties over a tankard of mead or some such. Woodiness gives one confidence. The duo aren’t lacking in that department.

The duo paint it all over keeping to an uncoated strict tonality and pared back modalities. It’s not an all guns blazing approach mercifully.

Crucially neither do the Germans pine for the fjords which can prove – and often is – insufferable.

I wonder will they unleash a full album on an unsuspecting public this year. Or dilly – odds bodkins – a bit until 2027. Let’s see.

I do fancy a bit of all this live some time. Sadly, I can’t amble along to their gig this week in Dalston as detained elsewhere concerned with more pressing matters quotidien infinitely less entertaining a prospect.

But certainly the potential is there to hoover up a bit of the Blair-Hubers before the strains of the new EP die away and they disappear back to play in some bierkeller or other.

The pair venture far from the Rhineland this spring when they are over to play to a few curious Engländer.

– One to bumble along to if at a loose end, dear reader. Perhaps I have “oversold” it. Hopefully not. Regardless ticket details for the SJQ, Dalston, where they beach up on Monday 6 April, are here. Chess loving Alice runs a decent joint. It’s a congenial spot to hear quality music up close and personal down in the basement of this Bradbury Street dive handy for Eldica.