SIRKIS AND BIALAS INTERNATIONAL QUARTET AT THE CAMBRIDGE WINE BAR UNIVERSITY CENTRE
Asaf Sikiris in action
International’ was a very welcome concept for a dark January night, deep in an English post -Christmas trough. What a release to leave the endless clearing up and enjoy for an evening, what must be the most progressive of bands out in Europe today. And the low lit, well -stocked Cambridge Wine Bar is the place to do it in the company of an group whose new album alone took two years of musical skill to create.
No ensemble could be cooler. The moment pianist Frank Harrison’s inventively soothing riffs floated across the venue there was a collective sigh of relaxation as if the demands of holiday socialising were just a pleasant furry dream. Somehow this master of keyboard and piano managed to create a reassuring warm colourwash for the sonic fireworks in store. So it was with Alex Glasgow, a six string bass guitarist of exceptional charm. Both are grounded gifted and real.
Which was just as well as we were about to take off on a sonic journey I have never experienced before. Certainly it was a night to remember for all the very best reasons. Asaf Sirkis the drum leader of the group is a modest man. Just as well as his spectacular syncopation could otherwise dominate the quiet balance of this finely modulated quartet. That later he explodes into rocket mode is incidental. He is deeply musical, highly adventurous and frankly you wlll never have heard anything like his talent before. Vocal drumming anyone? It was barely credible he could articulate his own percussion – hands still moving noiselessly over the skins. Pretty unbelievable. And as for Silwia Bialas, she sings – or is it singing? - with such a controlled exuberance, one moment sexy, low and spine (and anything else) tingling, the next, soaring to the condition of some sort of early human, far flung deep in the forests of the past. It is all improvised in some mysterious way but Silwia is no diva. She simply exudes talent, the ultimate vocalist. ‘I have never heard a voice used as a musical instrument before’ murmured my companion, ‘Except for ‘The Queen of the Night’ in Mozart’s Magic Flute’. Silwia is in that league, a jazz opera singer who has, lucky for us, taken the right turn at the crossroads of wherever her amazing voice could have taken her. She also plays the Waterphone, an intriguing instrument like an upended half finished kitchen utensil, invented in the 60s by a Californian, a Mr. Waters. Until now you’ve only ever heard is as a soundscape to sci-fi films but Silwia ( who is Polish by the way) uses it to enhance her sensationally beautiful voice to create an other worldly mystical atmosphere. Yet despite the spookiness, the band is full of humour. In ‘Picture from a Polish Wood’ the music tells the story of Asaf and Silwia in a dense Polish forest with Asaf fearful of a bear. There is a deafening drum confrontation with the looming (imagined) creature and Silwia ends the piece with a bear-like growl.
Sirkis’ compositions are sensational. Practiced surely but spontaneous Letter to A was melodic and lovely, a tribute if I’ve got this right, to his late father, a great fan of European organ music. As Sirkis explained, Europeans have always lived with an organ in every church and hear it often at concerts. In his native Israel not so much. With the soaring voice of the incomparable Silwia somehow blended with Harrison’s organy keyboard and lyrical piano inserts with the resonant percussion from Sirkis, we rolled off into another hugely rewarding highly pleasurable world of musical invention.
When Silvia sang her own compositions including the zany If Pegasus had one Wing’ -a parallel serenity suffused the room. The sounds are so novel and yet so deeply familiar, they impinge on the spirit in a fashion far from the the demands of words – Silwia ranges across octaves with satisfyingly mellow ease.
The International Quartet have just completed their new album Our New Earth - a long labour of inventiveness – dedicated to the future of the planet – and it will emerge over the coming year . It is the music of the future. Certainly it lifts the spirits, lightens the mood and restores a state of happy contentment. You can’t ask much more from any players.
