Drummer/composer Sun-Mi Hong didn’t get to where she is now without a struggle for independence. She was born in Incheon, South Korea, to a conservative family and earmarked for a teacher’s life, but her teenage dream was to become a drummer. At 19, as the only woman in a not-overly respectful percussion class, she got wind of the Amsterdam Conservatorium’s jazz course, moved to Europe and met her band of skilful soulmates. Her evolving music leans towards a European chamber-jazzy sound with occasional American hints of Wayne Shorter, Paul Motian, or Ambrose Akinmusire. The Dutch jazz scene has feted her: the latest of its accolades, the Paul Acket award for an “extraordinary contribution to jazz”, will be presented to Hong at the big-time North Sea jazz festival this July.
This album continues her series inspired by ideas of migration and self-discovery. The band’s signature sound of closely entwining brass and woodwind harmonies open the two-part title track: tenor saxophonist Nicolò Ricci and Scottish trumpeter Alistair Payne are improvisers of elegant shape and balance, and delicate thematic tone-painters, too. Quiet abstraction unveils the second section, before canny slow-burn pianist Chaerin Im’s piano ostinato and Hong’s surging percussion ignite a crescendo: Hong often favours free-swinging Elvin Jones-like grooves in which the core of the beat roams all over the kit. Soft horn sighs, cymbal flickers, and Italian bassist Alessandro Fongaro’s fast flutters colour the plaintive Escapism, Toddler’s Eye is a springy folk-dance and the suite A Never-Wilting Petal confirms this imaginative band’s talents for balancing storytelling with on-the-fly musical adventures.
from www.theguardian.com