Haunting sounds from Sheffield drummer Sarah Heneghan
From the Rhondda Valleys – clearly somewhere close to her heart as there’s a tune here called ‘The Rhondda Line’ – Sarah Heneghan wasn’t initially a drummer only taking to the instrument in her twenties. She is folk and electronic music influenced and that shows in places on this fairly interesting release that doesn’t overstate its case but which has a slow burning intensity to it.
Her work has received support from organisations including Manchester Jazz Festival, see some of the fruits of her labours above in the video, Jazz North, Sage Gateshead and Arts Council England, and she was selected for London promoter Serious’ Take Five development programme. Heneghan teaches at the University of Sheffield and contributes to the city’s improvised music scene.
There’s a simplicity to the Tiny Sacred Gaps sound which is shaped around her drumming and electronics and a bit of guitar dubbed in here and there meshed with Ben Gaunt’s piano playing and Charlotte Keeffe’s trumpet mournfulness. The tunes are quite heartfelt and poignant. I reckon she’s more of a writer than a monster player. What’s here is not particularly generic as a sound. What I mean by that is it doesn’t cling to language specific to simply one area. As a jazz listener I get it but I don’t think you have to be one to take something away from what’s here. It does feel a little too under produced though. And I wasn’t so keen on the brittle keys lines on ‘Wings & Locomotion’ but preferred the set up a lot more on ‘Heath’ and the rest of the tracks.
Gaunt reminds me of Chris Hyson of Snowpoet a bit in approach. The Tiny Sacred Gaps keyboardist also played with Heneghan in a project called Beyond Albedo, above. He studied composition at the Royal Northern College of Music.
Charlotte Keeffe is mainly known as a free improviser but in this context is far more conventional than the approach found on a lot of her work and it suits her well coming in from the cold. She made her debut with Right Here, Right Now issued 5 years ago and has collaborated with musicians including Paul Dunmall and Orphy Robinson.
– Heneghan, Keeffe and Gaunt play music from Tiny Sacred Gaps in Pizza Express Live, Soho in London on Saturday at lunchtime. Further dates include Matt and Phred’s, Manchester on 4 November
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