Daily Tune: Mammal Hands – Black Sails

Creating music is about learning, learning how you interact with other musicians, learning which styles and approaches suit you the best and learning what you have to offer the world. By that measure, Mammal Hands are one of the most interesting bands going at the moment, in or outside of the contemporary jazz scene. From their early work, and the inevitable comparisons to people like Portico Quartet and, to a lesser extent, GoGo Penguin, they’ve carried on developing their sound, branching further and further out until they hit something unique and fascinating. Now, approaching the release of their third album, the Mammal Hands sound is almost instantly recognisable.

The album, entitled Shadow Work, features cover art which ominously recalls the front of Joy Division’s Unknown Pleasures. It’s fitting, as the album was recorded in Manchester and allegedly goes a lot deeper into the minds of the practitioners. The comparisons end there though, if Black Sails is anything to go by. It’s definitely one of the most cinematic pieces the band has ever recorded, with Nick Smart’s rising, lilting piano melody which runs steadily while his brother Jordan’s saxophone chatters over the top, before the two are drawn into a kind of harmonic debate in the crescendo and chorus. In more simplified, less wanky terms, this track rises and falls a lot.

Jesse Barret’s drumming is also excellent as ever on this track. There’s no explosive moment, but it flickers and sparks in all the right places to keep what would otherwise by a largely sedate piece moving at an even pace. For those of us who have been keeping track of Mammal Hands since they broke onto the scene with Animalia in 2014, it’s very encouraging to how much the trio have developed and improved their sound.

Shadow Work comes out on October 27th, pre-order it here.