9th October 2013: Glowing Album Launch Review from London Jazz News and Review from Jazz Camera for Matt Ridley’s ‘Thymos’

Matt Ridley’s debut release Thymos, which launches on Whirlwind Recordings on the 14th October, has already received many 4 star and glowing reviews.

To add to this collection we have a review of the album launch concert at Pizza Express in Soho from London Jazz News and an album review from Jazz Camera.

The album features London based musicians with John Turville on piano, George Hart on drums and Matt Ridley on bass and compositions. Guest musicians are Jason Yarde on saxophones, Attab Haddad on oud and Vasilis Sirikis on percussion.

On the concept of the album Matt states that “I envisaged a sound encompassing the exotic flavors and emotions of Middle Eastern music with the jazz sensibility of improvisation on complex structures.” By fusing the modal and rhythmic elements of Middle-Eastern music with the harmonic complexities of jazz, Ridley’s composition ‘Siddhartha’ was born. What followed was a stream of ideas which aligned themselves into the other music on the album with influences as diverse as funk, contemporary jazz inspired by both the London and NYC scenes, composers Kenny Wheeler and Vijay Iyer, as well as 20th century minimalism.

Check out the new release on the album page and featured below is promo video for the release.