Album review: The Impossible Gentlemen: The Impossible Gentlemen

The Impossible Gentlemen: The Impossible GentlemenBasho Records, £12.99****

Lurking behind the inscrutable name is an excellent Anglo-American quartet of well-established musicians. Guitarist Mike Walker and pianist Gwilym Simcock link up with the great American rhythm pairing of Steve Swallow on bass and Adam Nussbaum on drums in a combination that first played together last year, and by all accounts instantly gelled on stage. That is borne out by this debut recording, in which all four players have ample opportunity to shine, and to lay down their own stylistic markers. Nonetheless, the music's real strength is collective – the interaction between four diverse talents is a constant treat, whether on gentle, exquisitely textured explorations like Walker's increasingly expansive When You Hold Her or Simcock's Gwil's Song, or up-tempo material, exemplified by Walker's Laugh Lines or Simcock's Play The Game. They close with Nussbaum's sinuous blues, Sure Would Baby.