Recording: A Nilan Perera Ensemble

Artist: A Nilan Perera Ensemble

Song: [second piece]

Recorded at The Tranzac's Southern Cross Lounge (SynapticCircusSundays), September 30, 2018.

A Nilan Perera Ensemble - [second piece]

Colin Fisher (who played in the night's previous set) was a last-minute addition to this ensemble, adding some drums to a group that included Wes Neal on double bass and Kayla Milmine on soprano sax alongside Perera's electric guitar. If the change in personnel shifted the sound Perera was aiming for, there was certainly no sign of a lack of ideas, as he nudged the quartet in several interesting directions.

In this piece, he returned to an occasional theme he's been pursuing in his appearances in this series of using folk motifs as the launchpads for improvisation. This time, however, it came out more in a progressive folk kind of vein, like a throwback to when you'd hear the FM stations playing side-long jams late at night. Some excellent restraint from Milmine here, who simply closed her eyes and nodded along for the whole long first section of this piece, waiting for the right time to come in and give it some new momentum for the endgame.

[Half of this ensemble will return to Synaptic Circus in the Southern Cross on Sunday, November 25th with Kayla Milmine and Wes Neal being joined by Rick Sacks — plus music from Bakan, Lutek, Murley and Underhill LLP.]