Richard Davies is a UK saxophonist experimenting with cinematic sounds and marrying jazz, blues, electronic, and ambient styles. His past releases include over twenty albums, including ‘Cosmic Odyssey,’ ‘A Pagan Landscape,’ ‘Memory Sells,’ ‘Misspent Youth,’ and more. Pagan Landscape was reviewed on Platinum Mind here: Album Review: “A Pagan Landscape” – Richard Davies. Words: Sammy Stein – Platinummind.net and Cosmic Odyssey was reviewed on Medium here: Album Review | Richard Davies ‘Cosmic Odyssey II’ | by Sammy Stein | The Riff | Medium
Typically of Davies, ‘The Unfortunate Collision of Everything at Once’ explores the connections of musical styles, different sonic platforms, and features his lyrical playing style, which forms the backbone of his music.
From the intricate, tricky percussive rhythms overlaid with atmospheric sax in ‘Nice Quod Revertar’ to the gentle, rich, ambient gait of ‘Cat on a Window Sill,’ the album is packed with diversity of style and musical interpretation.
Davies uses an array of ideas and concepts, such as the electronic sounds to amplify the essence of his themes, such as in ‘Sea Creatures’, where the unhurried saxophone sings across sounds of rippling percussion, before building into a rhythmic, explorative final section, or the interesting emergence of the sax from a recorded conversation, such as on ‘Dining Out’. This track features some wonderfully clever ‘misplaced’ notes coming in just shy of the major intervals, too, which adds unexpected atmosphere.
‘Ashamed’ is glorious in its simplicity of form, yet Davies’s sax adds some complexity to create a track packed with interest, playing soft ascensions and descents across the open styled percussive elements.
‘This World Is Inside Nothing’ is a melodic track with brassy overtones and gentle keyboard, while ‘Ode to Tiptoeing through Life’ features Eastern rhythms and intricate sax, including some flash-fingered phrases. ‘Anxiety Hides In My Dreams’ begins with a bass line that runs throughout the number, with piano entering with chords and the sax soaring across the top, and some spoken voice.
The closing track, ‘The Unfortunate Collision of Everything At Once,’ is a dream-like, explorative number, with beautifully worked melodic phrases.
The album is a gentle and immersive creation featuring Davies playing some of his best music.
