Perfect Houseplants
Although the group's debut album, simply entitled Perfect Houseplants, was considered "the best british jazz album of 1993" (Jazz on CD), the band's music draws upon many other musical forms, including classical, Brazillian, Ragtime, and even music written for film and cartoon. However, never satisfied with merely providing simple themes for improvisation, Perfect Houseplant's music is adventurous and confidently stylish. Expect the unexpected! The band's second album Clec (1995) opened a significantly larger soundworld by using accordian, prepared piano, percussion, cello and sampled sounds as well as the more conventional line-up of saxophones, piano, bass and drums. This concept was further explored in a series of radical cross-over projects with artists as diverse as the early music ensemble The Orlando Consort (Extempore released on Linn in 1998) and the award-winning baroque violinist Andrew Manze. The group's debut album for Linn Records, Snap Clatter was released to critical acclaim in 1997 and is their most fully realised musical statement yet and features 11 compositions performed with huge authority and passion. Individually the members of Perfect Houseplants have played with a glittering array of British talent, including Django Bates, Kenny Wheeler, Dave Holland, Colin Towns, Andy Sheppard, Prefab Sprout, June Tabor, etc. The band was awarded the Andrew Milne Award (1999) for their New Folk Songs project which formed the basis of their latest release on Linn Records. Whilst spectacular virtuoso skills are virtually compulsory for Jazz or Contemporary Music groups, Perfect Houseplants' intuitive, humourous and subtle interplay are a far rarer jewel which clearly gives Perfect Houseplants it's unique and special voice. What the reviews say:"Perfect Houseplants have in their debut produced
possibly the best British Jazz album of 1993." "If you don't like this you don't deserve ears." "The most innovative and elegant contemporary
Jazz Quartet on the British scene." "A scintillating performance by this British
Quartet. It is a band with a unique personality of its own, slightly
jokey in manner but
hugely accompllished in execution." "It is tender, melodious, witty and mercurial,
apparently untouched by fashion and completely sure of itself." "Artful and witty, their approach is unmistakeably
European in character, combining memorable, atmospheric compositions
with confident, understated
playing." "If Snap Clatter were a book,
it'd be Alice in Wonderland - a
clever whimsical journey profuse with ideas. It's overflowing with
scholarly improvs and epigrammatic phrasing that tosses and turns at
every moment." "Startling arrangements of memorable, multi-styled
compositions mark them as a band of exceptional range." "More drama than the RSC." "The music is clever without ever sounding
pretentious or over complex." "Extempore is a delightful album,
a fascinating development of the musical area opened up by Jan Garbarek's
Officium. Extempore is a more adventurous
collaboration between Houseplants, a quartet of sophisticated jazz
musicians from the dynamic new generation which emerged in the eighties.
The variety of approach in all of their joint pieces is remarkable
and utterly absorbing."
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Perfect Houseplants is a unique
collaboration between four of the most distinctive voices in British
modern music and acknowledged as being "at the cutting edge of contemporary
jazz music" (The Guardian) with
an innovative approach to composition, "operating in a territory of
folksy tunes, sultry tangos, waltzes and busy time changes."