Perch Hen Brock & Rain is an improvising quartet drawing on myriad experiences and backgrounds. Each member is conscious of their own weight and power to add to the communal conversation, understanding silence and restraint can be as powerful a contribution to the whole as density. Ingrid Laubrock and Tom Rainey represent the best of the New York scene while Ab Baars and Ig Henneman are key members of the idiosyncratic Dutch improvised music community. Either duo showcases the kind of telepathic interplay that comes from years of dedicated playing.

The quartet gathered for a first extensive European tour in November 2014, followed by appearances at amongst others the North Sea Jazz Festival, a Canadian Jazz Festival tour and in 2018 the Dutch SummerJazzCycleTour. The day after they went into the studio and this is the music that is released on their new album Elegiacal, which will finally be presented live.

‘While there’s plenty of nuanced interplay, sharply turned angles and intriguingly contrasting woodwind tonalities, it’s boat rocking moments like the slurred diction of Henneman’s viola on ‘Old West Blues’ and Tom Rainey’s periodic percussive koans that push this session beyond collegiality into collectively creative engagement’ (The Wire).

Ab Baars tenor sax/clarinet/shakuhachi, Ig Henneman viola, Ingrid Laubrock tenor sax/soprano sax, Tom Rainey drums