Edinburgh Fringe music reviews: MUO Live | Blue Note Nights – JazzMain on the Fringe

MUO Live ★★★★

French Institute in Scotland (Venue 168) until 23 August

Analogue synth wizard Lomond Campbell has boffin form when it comes to inventing instruments. Some years back his Cybraphon literally played mood music, affected by the tone of social media chatter about it.

MUO Live | Lomond Campbell

Now he has been commissioned by Glasgow University to produce the Muonophone, another very attractive piece of kit which uses muon detectors to harness cosmic radiation from nuclear events in deep space.

Some people might even know what that means but at least a few folks get to hear what it sounds like as Campbell performs a limited series of concerts in the French Institute where the machine is on display as a Fringe installation.

Stop me if I’m getting too technical but the Muonophone is a beautiful beast which looks like a sleek update on something Brian Eno might have twiddled in the early Roxy Music days, with lots of shiny knobs and a panel of lights activating in real time to the sound waves.

Some will get to hear how it sounds solo but on this occasion Campbell was joined by special guest Kathryn Joseph, performing songs from her Campbell-produced synthed-up new album We Were Made Prey on grand piano for the first time. MUO, meanwhile, is going to “twinkle in the background” as if it has a life of its own.

Maybe it does. Encountering MUO in this stately oak-panelled room feels like being at a cosmic recital or the unveiling of a new invention but this is a fully fledged concert, not some lab conditions reveal.

A sound like the crackle of vinyl runs under much of the music while on the big screen behind the musicians, visuals shift from splashes of movement to geometric shards to kaleidoscopic patterns.

Campbell/MUO adds foreboding swoops to the visceral gothic folk of Roadkill, slabs of stormy drones over the pounding piano of Wolf and playful boings, burps and bursts of sound to accompany Joseph’s sorceress quaver on Before but otherwise MUO is rather unobtrusive, even sensitive for such a big old cosmic waves machine.

Fiona Shepherd

Blue Note Nights – JazzMain on the Fringe ★★★★

The Jazz Bar (Venue 57) until 11 August

New York’s Blue Note label, which lent its name to a richly creative era of bop and post-bop jazz over the 1950s and 1960s, is widely regarded as one of the most significant record labels in the history of jazz.

The music of that Blue Note era is particularly favoured by the Scottish quartet JazzMain, a well-honed quartet led by saxophonist Nick Gould with pianist Steve Grossart, bass guitarist Iain Harkness and Kevin Dorrian on drums.

They play with panache and a palpable love of the repertoire. Gould introduced each number and whichever legendary figure played it, opening with the familiar, insouciant swing of Hank Mobley’s My Move Your Groove, led by Gould’s big-toned tenor sax.

The quartet acquainted – or reacquainted – us with some perhaps relatively lesser known numbers such as Wes Montgomery’s Full House, sax and bass guitar spelling out its theme in unison, Horace Silver’s Tokyo Blues which, despite its title, worked up a gladsome groove, with short sharp drum interjections from Dorrian, or Dexter Gordon numbers including his perky Three O’clock in the Morning and the infectious samba hook of Soy Califa.

More familiar material included Dizzy Gillespie’s Night in Tunisia, delivered with plenty of punch, and, from Miles Davis’s landmark album Kind of Blue, the laid-back rocking of All Blues, Gould’s beefy sax winding around the groove then giving way to an animated piano excursion from Grossart.

Another delight was Joe Henderson’s rollicking, bossa-inflected Mamacita, with Dorrian’s shakers kept busy and further pianistic fireworks from Grossart. As a showcase of that creatively fecund Blue Note era, it was an immensely enjoyable one – and JazzMain promise a different playlist every night.

Jim Gilchrist

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