Sam Anning: Earthen
Earshift Music

More than anything else, double bassist Sam Anning's third septet album exudes reverence, specifically reverence for the gift of music-making and for those who came before and shared their wisdom and experiences. The inspirational figure in this case is the late Uncle Archie Roach, an iconic Indigenous Australian singer-songwriter with whom the Melbourne-based Anning played for three years before Roach's 2022 passing. When the bassist and guitarist Stephen Magnusson visited him in the hospital during his final days and played to comfort him, Roach pointed to their instruments and called them earthenware to emphasize that they came from the ground and would eventually return to it after gifting us with music. His comment that what they were playing was the “medicine” he needed speaks more generally to music's healing power and its ability to help us transcend our physical selves.

That spirit of reverence carries over into the humility with which Anning, trumpeter Mat Jodrell, saxophonists Carl Mackey (alto) and Julien Wilson (tenor), keyboardist Andrea Keller, guitarist Theo Carbo, and drummer Kyrie Anderson execute the bassist's nine pieces. The hymn-like overture “Rise Up Lights” introduces the album with dignified chorale expressions from the horns, nuanced piano and guitar textures, and a double-time pulse by Anderson that bolsters the music's momentum. Perpetuating its tone is “Strangers,” which offers the first in-depth illustration of the chemistry between the players. With the horns functioning as melodic glue, interactions between the leader, pianist, guitarist, and drummer testify to the deep connection the ensemble's forged. The performance is structured by Anning's writing, of course, but it's also elevated by the assurance and freedom with which the players improvise. Ponderous introspection alternates with exuberance as the album advances, with the meditative reflection “Hard Light” leading into the tenor-led and electronics-dotted excursion “Transitive States.”

No track better captures the tasteful restraint the players bring to the album than “Kicking Not Screaming.” Anderson's beat pattern is as unadorned as could be imagined, for example, but is no less effective for being so. Keller's voicings are refined, the horns adorn the piece soulfully, and Anning, like the drummer, never overplays, content as he is to ground the performance solidly. At almost eleven minutes, “Moonland” documents the band's ability to sustain connection over a long, ever-evolving journey, as well as makes room for thoughtfully considered solo statements by Mackey and Keller. If “Uvalde” broods unsettlingly (especially when punctuated by heavy drum accents), it's perhaps explained by the presumed event that prompted its writing, the Texas school shooting in May 2022. Its dark tone is the exception to the rule, however, on an album that's for the most part elegiac in its honouring of Roach and the gift that music is. At album's end, Jodrell takes a lovely turn on “Eleventy Million (for Auggie Bruten)” with Carbo on acoustic guitar and the others providing sensitive support.

May 2024