"Bilbao Syndrome are one of the most ambitiously heavy things to come out of the North Metal scene in a long time".

Kelly Sinner, Grind Magazine.

"Awful.....another wasted effigy aiding the death of music".

Peter Fraks, The Review.

"Gorgeously heavy riffs with brutal speed and dexterity".

Charlotte Hines, The Nine Club.

"This CD finally confirms what I've long suspected - that Leeds based pianist is the bastard child of John Shuttleworth and Cecil Taylor. Recorded live in Molde, Norway in July 2005, the hour long performance offers schizoid, non sequitur piano improvisations encased in mischievous samples snatched from pulp culture. The first piece has Bourne tossing a torrent of clustery counterpoint against the Disney chestnut "When You Wish Upon A Star"; later improvisations bounce against wisecracking plays on words from The Simpsons. A particularly disgusting description of what 'dicks' do to 'pussies' is looped to provide a rhythmic backdrop for improvisation. Using samples which have a potent resonance in their own right in this manner is a high risk strategy; perpetually balanced on a knife-edge, it's as if he is intrepidly tinkering with the sacred cows. In a moment of pure Shuttleworth, Bourne tells an anecdote about his broken minidisk player, before proceeding to stuff a ridiculous number of notes into each bar, joking that "it's time to get the jazz out of the way". But Bourne's piano playing has matured noticeably. The maelstrom counterpoint and abrupt structural hiccups of Michael Finnissy are in his DNA, and his playing feels ever more pointed and controlled. As an encore, "The Folks Who Live On The Hill" is played 'straight', with a gentle spirit and fastidiously evolving harmonies. This is a fine portrait of Bourne's dadaist talents, a more faithful representation than 2003's Electric Dr M".

Philip Clark, Review of "The Molde Concert" CD, The Wire, September 2007.

"He has chops, and he has ideas. Some of the time he sounds like he wants to be like Cecil Taylor, some of the time Keith Jarrett: decent role models but you can't cram both of those styles into one, which suggests he's just being a dilettante. He drops in sampled voices when the music's running a bit low, and this soon becomes irritating, sometimes even offensive. Worst of all, he has a sentimental streak: at one point he plays Lionel Richie's "Hello" (which he credits to himself). An encore of Annette Peacock's "Kid Dynamite" is full of wrong notes. This is nobody's idea of the future of jazz".

Richard Cook, Review of "The Molde Concert" CD, Jazz Review, August 2007.

"He is less strategic in designing a show and more tempted by humour, but the British pianist/composer Matthew Bourne has a lot in common with John Zorn. Bourne confronts listeners with the rawness of his music, rather than manipulating them with familiar licks. He improvises with a cyclonic energy and virtuosity, and rummages in a bag of influences gathered from all over the past century's music. This is a solo live show from the 2005 Molde Jazz festival. Bourne typically rejects any repolishing of the rawness of the event - including various ramblingly self-deprecating and sometimes off-mic announcements. There are sampled voices from movies, TV, poetry readings and The Simpsons, which scream obscenities, fight, joke, gently reminisce or trill through Disney's Pinocchio while Bourne's accompanying, interrogating piano thunders like an avalanche, drifts into Gershwinesque chords, flutters in soft, circling high ostinatos or hurtles through free-jazzy runs. He plays an improvised sequence of almost-orthodox music at the end, including a probing account of The Folks Who Live On the Hill. It's a sometimes uncomfortable disc that will divide the lovers and the loathers, but that's just the way he'd want it".

John Fordham, review of "The Molde Concert" CD, The Guardian, August 3rd 2007.

From the wonderfully eccentric introduction using a sample of Cliff Edwards singing 'When You Wish Upon a Star'; from Walt Disney's Pinocchio - Edwards was actually one of the very first bone fide jazz singers in the 1920s, so maybe his appearance is not that incongruous at a jazz festival - this is a wonderful exposition of a Bourne solo piano concert. Piano episodes segue into samples - mostly odd yet amusing spoken word snippets from old films - which are used to punctuate the mood changes of this spontaneously improvised concert. In all there are 20 episodes, with two encores, 'Kid Dynamite' and 'The Folks Who Live On the Hill'. By the time you've got to these you've been through a bewildering odyssey of dizzying whirlpools of piano colours, strange rhapsodic reveries and samples that any self respecting surrealist would have been proud. There's a kind of manic intensity and eccentricity to all this which makes it totally compelling. Much as Jules Verne's Journey to the Centre of the Earth was a metaphor for a journey into the dark recesses of the human mind and imagination, this too is a journey into the inner man, where equally strange things reveal themselves".

Stuart Nicholson, Review of "The Molde Concert" CD, Jazzwise, August 2007.

"And now for something completely different. Leeds College Of Music lecturer Matthew Bourne is probably one of the most unclassifyable musicians in the world. Lumped in with a Jazz crowd that bares little or no resemblance to the pianists freestyled, avant-garde way of doing things. Nevertheless Bourne is beginning to build a cult following in Jazz circles, his compositions a refreshing breakout from the rules and restrictions that define even such a free genre as Jazz. It would not be so far fetched to say in fact that Bourne shares a lot more in common with the likes of rock contemporaries the Mars Volta than anyone from the Jazz world with his erratic displays of random soundbursts, percussive use of the piano and sprawling, fastpaced performance. This live album taken from his performance in Molde, Norway during 2005 showcases exactly what Bourne is all about. Playing in reaction to a series of sampled visual and audio aids on a large screen behind him the best comparison to make of the Leeds pianist's arrangements is to that of old Disney cartoon music as the melodies followed the buffoonery actions of Tom and Jerry et al. Indeed thats what this is, mood music as opposed to a conventional construction. Bourne shows that as long as something is played with feeling and meaning it can be as effective on an audience as anything else out there. Highlights include the track Sim, as Bourne picks up a spoken sample from Homer Simpson and follows the pitch of his voice on piano, and following track America which bastardises the 'Dicks, Pussies and Assholes' speech from Team America to whip a frenzied, tortured piano movement that becomes angrier and angrier each time. Bourne's wit and humour are clear throughout the gig, ironically making track Stupidity the most coherent and sustained period of piano playing throughout whilst Beaty is exactly what it says on the tin as the artist decides to use his piano as a percussion instrument. This is an album that portrays a man flowing with ideas, perhaps a DVD would have been more accessible to first time listeners but then Bourne has never really been about accessibility. Either loved as a free thinker striving to explore new boundaries or hated as a some sort of lame joke whose compositions bare absolutely nothing in common with music whatsoever he'll always be controversial. If you can embrace the notion of the Molde Concert as emotion and reaction over standard convention however then these set of recordings really are something to inspire and change your whole perspective on how you view music as a whole.

Jarrock, Jarock87.blogspot.com

“Matthew Bourne did a solo show. He didn't have any samples which made one laugh this time, as he felt that audiences haven't appreciated his main message. I have always found Matthew's solo shows quite disturbing, really opening up the problems that he seems to be facing at any time. I thought that it got through really well this time. Interesting to hear from him that he is talking quite a bit to Billy Jenkins about the problem of humour overpowering the objective of the performance. I also didn't know that he is doing a Ph.D on improvisation and the use of samples and similar”.

Oliver Wiendling, Gaume Jazz Festival, August 2003.

“Matthew Bourne is no ordinary pianist. He has the ability to play in seemingly any classic jazz style he chooses…As the mood takes him he’ll toss in, often humorously, odd bits of percussion or whistle, and samples that might include film soundtracks, romantic ballads or majestic classical works. Bourne is an original thinker and has the virtuosity to carry out his bold moves with panache. A great champion of British Jazz, which he believes has been underrated, he is one of Britain’s new young jazz hopes. He performs in this highlight from the 2002 Bath Jazz Festival”.

Simon Barlow, Radio broadcast feature, Weekend Magazine, Daily Mail, Summer 2003.

“Bourne’s music goes beyond the boundaries of improvised music and is something that is rare and exceptional”

BBC Jazz Awards, July 2002.

“Matthew Bourne, an innovative Perrier-winner mixing sampled radio voices and humorous sound-effects with sensitive keyboard work, yesterday upstaged Swedish pianist Esbjorn Svensson’s trio”.

Jack Massarik, Review of London Jazz Festival, Evening Standard, 12th November 2001.

“…anarchic yet charming…”

Django Bates, Jazz UK issue 39, May/June 2001.

“Take pianist Matthew Bourne, for instance, who won the Young Jazz Musician award and is at present at Leeds College of Music. The fact that he invoked the name of John Zorn before he commenced his set was enough to prove that it was not going to be an easy ride, but even so we were not quite prepared for his startling and passionate performance, accomplished with the aid of an electronic keyboard and some spoken tracks. He has a dazzling technique, ominous thunderings being succeeded by passages of emotional delicacy, the piece, of which he never told us the title, subsiding at the finish to end on a note of delicious irony”.

Peter Hepple, Review of Perrier Jazz Awards Final, The Stage, 18th April 2001.

“…Matthew Bourne, an inspired eccentric deploying sampled video-game noises, US radio announcements, a hotel reception bell and the odd chord played with his stockinged feet. Such originality (and musicianship) earned Bourne, of Leeds College of Music, a majority vote from the judges…”

Jack Massarik, Review of Perrier Jazz Awards Final, Evening Standard, 6th April 2001.

Bourne Davis Kane

"The last time Bourne Davis Kane played in Scotland they had Jack Jones on vocals, at least courtesy of Matt Bourne triggering the old smoothie's contribution electronically. This time they did the singing DIY. Singing may be a bit of an overstatement for farmyard sounds and a rough approximation of a pub band trying to remember the lyrics to I Got Rhythm. Like the Jack Jones sampling, however, it's another example of the trio's determination to get away from stereotypical images of improvising musicians being po-faced. Not that anyone could land such a punch on this mob. Although a seriously accomplished pianist whose ten-fingered bustling all over the keyboard is balanced by the most tender, subtlest expression, Bourne gives every impression of only having failed at stand-up comedy through absent mindedness. Set lists are determined by spontaneous committee. Bassist Dave Kane's sparse, impromptu Moo, complete with audience participation, somehow proved an ideal overture to the rapid initial surge, dive into conventional-ish swing and pastoral outro of Carla Bley's Thelonious Monk-like Donkey. Sometimes the results of a decision to just play and see what happens prove a mite less than involving for the listener. But there's still much to admire in the understanding they've built up".

Rob Adams, The Bongo Club, Edinburgh. Reviewed in The Herald, 16th November, 2007

"Move over, EST; out of our way, The so called Bad Plus; don't make us laugh, Brad 'Meldrew' Meldhau. On the strength of this, BDK go to work with aggressive good humour. No wonder there's an old photo of steel-workers on the back of this, for the trio have a gritty Lagan-built reliability that doesn't preclude moments of real beauty, like the wind-down on Steven Davis's "Melt". The drummer's responsible for one other original, "De Selby's Earth", and bassist Dave Kane for a couple more, including the fine title track. Matthew Bourne (not that Matthew Bourne) plays piano and sampler with rugged individualism. One slightly worrying thing. In the group photo, Dave Kane has three arms. Lost something?".

Brian Morton, review of "Lost Something" CD, The Wire, 2006.

Mindless Provocation? Contrived Novelty? Strangely, no and no again…Bourne’s actual piano playing had a wild, unschooled quality and at times he attacked the keyboard with such ferocity that he was lifted off his stool with the colossal physical effort expended, his whole body a hyper-kinetic blur. But at other times his playing surprised with its lyricism and sense of beauty…They even tackled ‘Autumn Leaves’, but, frankly, only to give the much-loved standard a damn good kicking. “You’re out of your fu***** mind” intoned a voice on one of the samples utilised…if the comment was aimed at Bourne himself, then the 150 captivated punters begged to differ”.

Trevor Hodgett, Belfast 2002 Festival Review, Jazzwise, Issue 62, March 2003.

“The energy that the trio took from repetition of this phrase (“Stress related burn-out”) was a prime example of their ability to pick up on an idea collectively and create spontaneous music. In this case the sheer energy rush made it exciting. In other, less hectic instances, their instant compositions were gentler or atmospheric. Was for example ‘Don’t look at me, I’m a beautiful girl’ something Bourne had up his sleeve, or can they really deliver to order? I don’t care, it was a lovely piece of tranquillity in a set that variously rumbled to Kane’s hyperactive bass playing, rocked to Davis’s assertive drumming…The level of invention and madness in their encore of ‘I Got Rhythm’ alone ensured that everyone left smiling”.

Rob Adams, Review of Glasgow Jazz Ferstival, Glasgow Herald, 7th July 2003.

Distortion Trio

…Their sonoristic style is based on seeking new timbres. The group used electronics in an extensive way: the domination of many different effects. Bourne based his playing on rhythmical clusters, Black was transforming his percussion sounds…Sharkey was sitting with the guitar on his knees and playing with different objects (mainly metal plates). He used this in combination with typical guitar techniques to amazing effect… An enthusiastic audience were treated to an encore in the form of their lyrical ballad “Faggot”.

Student Review for Audio Arts Festival, Krakow, December 2003.

“Distortion Trio was a modern take on vintage jazz-fusion. Bourne was a demon on his Fender Rhodes piano, at one point making his fingers bleed. Joined by a kit-less drummer Dave Black on various samplers/effects, and improvising guitarist Chris Sharkey. They proved why their involvement in The Electric Dr M and their new album is the toast of the new-jazz scene”.

Jamie Stephenson, Alternative Proms at Small Note, Sandman Magazine, Edition 004, January 2004.

“Pianist Matthew Bourne has already gained a reputation as a champion of British left-field modern jazz with his “Mwandishi meets Drum 'n Bass” project, The Electric Dr M. Seeing The Distortion Trio, aided by two French collaborators, however, it becomes apparent just how far he's willing to push things.

This isn't so much jazz, as free-Improv space-rock: a terrifically off-kilter monster built out of Dave Black's crashing, Beefheartian, drums; Chris Sharkey's scratchy laptop guitar; bobbing alto sax lines from guest, Christophe deBezenac; and subtly disorientating electronic “sound diffusion” from fellow countryman, Christian Sebille.

The anchor, though, is Bourne's erratic electric keyboard. There's Prog pomposity in there, with lightning fast, upper-register keyboard runs repeated over and over until they lose the quality of a solo and become, instead, a kind of dizzying groove template for the drums to smash around the edges of. Then, just when the band seems to be edging towards some kind of coherent riff, Bourne's left hand blasts out a devastating chord that lays waste to everything around it, forcing another instant re-evaluation of the improvisation's direction.

This relentless, frantic searching, with one motif giving way to the next before it's even had time to form, creates an atmosphere of acutely pleasurable anxiety, heightened even further by an irresistible, break-neck, free-jazz tempo, satisfyingly divorced from any conventional notion of metre or rhythm.

Inevitably, this edge-of-seat stuff is not to everyone's taste and a constant stream of terrified or confused punters flees the auditorium for less uncertain surroundings. This is clearly not a music about which anyone can remain ambiguous. Rather, it is consciously engineered to create a violent reaction in the listener. Right now, in these days of bland commodification and Philistine anti-intellectualism, there can't be many more important or necessary things for a musician to be doing”.

Daniel Spicer, Matthew Bourne and the Distortion Trio, Purcell Room, London Jazz Festival, 13th November 2004, www.allaboutjazz.com

“Not one for orthodox approaches however, pianist/synthesist Matthew Bourne's international quartet at the Purcell Room proved one of the most radical and exciting festival commissions. Like a jazz-reared Stockhausen, Bourne and band sculpted a kinetic, electronic-meets-acoustic noisescape of ear bashing delight”.

Stephen Graham, JazzWise, 24.03.05

“…I’m gonna book you guys for a private engagement…”.

Roni Size – after hearing the original trio after his set at the Oxford New College Ball, Summer 2001.

“The music is like a series of urban vignettes; sinuous and subtly contagious, it communicates through a furtive glance here or an offhand remark there. It’s one of the finest British Jazz albums in a long while”.

Stuart Nicholson, Jazzwise feature, Issue 68, September 2003.

“Bourne’s use of electronics mirrors the deep space blipscapes of Patrick Gleeson, while filtered loops and samples give a 21st century edginess. The twin drummer/bass axis cook up powerful yet controlled slices of funk, shot trough with slabs of pushy drum ‘n’ bass. Chris Sharkey’s guitar snakes through a variety of pitchshifters and delays and provides a constant abstract stream of drones and dentist drill outbursts, with nary a fusion lick or 11th chord to be found. Bourne’s agile, economical electric piano sounds gorgeous…In an ideal world, when the Mercury Prize judges are hunting around for next year’s token jazz nomination they’d start here…”.

Peter Marsh, Review of Debut album, BBC music reviews web page, October 2003.

“The Electric Dr M is by no means a mayhemic record but it is one driven by a hectic, dance-related pulse, that admits electronic noise as a qualifying texture and comes fleshed out with the full, fat tissue of a gurgling Fender Rhodes. Riaan Vosloo’s bass is the key to the whole enterprise…and he eschews decoration as if it smells, while his sheer architectural strength permits everyone else to go off on adventures in the safe knowledge that they have a home. You won’t find this an easy listen – check the studied avoidance of facile climaxes – but you will be at points both thrilled and grooved”.

Nick Coleman, Debut album review, The Independent, October 2003.

“…The Electric Dr M is about as long and winding a road as Bourne has taken to date. The suite is unsettling, sassy and insubordinate and confirms the young Brit as an imagineative and unapologetic voice”.

Album of the month, Music Week, October 2003.

“…It’s clear that (The Electric Dr M) are plugged into a more contemporary vocabulary, not to mention bigger and more ambitious structures. His (Bourne) fondness for Michael Finnissy makes sense of the album’s almost covert and subliminal structure, which only becomes evident on subsequent hearings, but immediately clinches its curious power. Translate some of these sounds into more canonical instruments and it might well be the work of a dot-driven postmodernist”.

Brian Morton, The Wire, Issue 239, January 2004.

“Despite an appearance at the London Jazz Festival in 2002, a number of interviews and a brilliant debut album, there remains something a little mysterious about Matthew Bourne. Perhaps it’s his intensity or his no bullshit attitude or the fact that he appeared to come out of nowhere with the release of the Electric Dr M album. The five-piece group take the stage and they look so familiar it’s as if they’ve stepped out of the group photograph on their cd sleeve – (one of the drummers appears to still be wearing the same hat). There’s a strong sense of shared purpose about the group, an impression underlined by Riaan Vosloo’s back turned to the audience and the intent, almost conspiratorial glances exchanged throughout the evening.

They begin to play in calm, slightly directionless waters before the current initiated by the two drummers, Dave Black and Sam Hobbs, takes them and propels everyone rapidly forward. Despite a poorly mixed p.a. there’s a sense of a large beast, some kind of dinosaur lizard extracting itself from a muddy swamp and picking up speed as it reaches clear ground, its weight making the earth rumble as it goes. The two players conjure a clattering, exhilarating din reminiscent of a Brazilian marching band like Olodum. Chris Sharkey’s guitar and Bourne’s Fender Rhodes maintain holding patterns like circling planes awaiting landing instructions. After ten minutes or more the motive force of the first piece begins to dissipate and the hammered percussion patterns begin to unravel into a second becalmed passage.

Again the drummers initiate the way forward while the other players begin to spin hypnotic spiders’ webs and skeins over their percussive mesh. The net effect is of determined forward motion shaded with nightmarish overtones. The intensity of their progress is stoked by Bourne’s intense Fender workouts which are a combination of driven rhythmic figures and jabbed note clusters, during which his hands blur, such is the speed of his playing. The group gain momentum like the Flying Scotsman gathering speed on a long straight. At the next pause for breath there are some moments of pure ‘70s Fender bliss as Bourne duets with Vosloo. As the latter moves to his iBook the scene shifts to something like a beatless Boards of Canada interlude. When the drummers rejoin proceedings they conjure up blunted hiphop beats and the picture’s satisfyingly completed.

After a short interval the Electric Dr M return to the stage this time joined by Spring Heel Jack, the duo who have achieved a fairly high profile since their switch from breakbeat science to improv experimentation a couple of years ago. John Coxon seats himself at the right of the stage looking very much the scruffy guitarist dude with lank hair, striped tracksuit pants, loafers and gold chain. His partner in crime Ashley Wales stands at his table of tricks off the stage and right at the back. Would this be leftfield supergroup time? Coxon unhesitatingly gets down to business with a remarkable confidence which verges on insouciance as he reels off yowls and wah’ed up howls while maintaining a strong sense of rhythmic propulsion. The others quickly join the chase and it gradually becomes evident that Spring Heel Jack’s presence is acting as a disruptive catalyst, disruption here being a markedly good thing. The duo’s arrival had been met with some trepidation regarding the possible imposition of a forbidding template upon Bourne’s group. It turns out that they’re much too sensitive to context for this to occur and instead they join the fray as fellow combatants. They bring with them an enhanced sense of possibility, a greater potential for accident and therefore surprise. It feels like Bourne’s Flying Scotsman locomotive has left the rails but is ploughing on regardless, its progress now looser and less marshal. The quieter passages when the drummers drop out now feel denser and more focused, but their calmness is unsettled by grinding sounds courtesy of Ashley Wales. This is just the sort of contrary intervention so many DJs and laptop-wielders fail to risk, which makes it all the more welcome in this context.

After several complaints about the p.a. Bourne is eventually loud enough to be heard. The combined attack of the two groups in the second half has this listener grinning from ear to ear as a messy, funky, driven electric jazz ebbs and swells from one intense climax to the next. As Bourne’s and Coxon’s playing leads the way in rolling, roiling, rollicking fashion, the music is simultaneously kaleidscopic and intensely rhythmic. There are theories to be developed about the aspects and influences of breakbeat culture both groups share – The Electric Dr M album could be described as the light of 1970s electric jazz shone through the prism of clubland, while Spring Heel Jack explored the tributaries and possibilities of breakbeat over seven albums between ’95 and 2000. Those theories can wait until the groups’ planned tour in the autumn. Tonight is apparently the first time they’ve played together and the result is a visceral pleasure. Roll on autumn”.

© Colin Buttimer, eleventhvolume.com The Electric Dr M and Spring Heel Jack, The Spitz, 22nd May 2004.

Miscellaneous

Future Sounds of Jazz.
Royal Festival Hall, London Jazz Festival.
November 12th, 2004.

“The first thing to note about this ambitious, 12-piece collective of young British jazz stars is the awfulness of its name. It promises a lot but, sadly, it just draws attention to the lumpen contemporaneity of their urban/dance/Hiphop crossover jazz, which sounds almost specifically designed for a live slot at the MOBO awards. If this is the future sound of jazz, then it's in a parallel universe where Ayler never made it out of the army, and Coltrane became a dentist.

There are some highlights, however: about ten minutes in, the groove gives way to a spectral piano improvisation from Matthew Bourne, with oddly incongruous spoken vocal samples, which trail away into a rapt silence. It's almost a shame when the band gets its beat back”.

Daniel Spicer, www.allaboutjazz.com

Matthew Bourne & Christophe de Bézenac.
The Sage, Gateshead.
March 19th, 2005.

“Pianist Matthew Bourne did not perform as advertised with bassist Barre Phillips whose place was taken by saxophonist Christophe de Bezénac. Bourne's set was, as expected, quite zany. At various points during the set especially when there was a screaming in tune contest and a free form 'towel' whip trick the show was pure vaudeville. But there was a sharp logic to the overall conception”.

Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise, 07/12/04.

Matthew Bourne, Peggy Lee & Jesse Zubot.
The Roundhouse, Vancouver Jazz Festival.
July 2nd, 2005.

Fifteen minutes into his improv set with violinist Jesse Zubot and cellist Peggy Lee at the Roundhouse Saturday afternoon (July 2), British keyboardist and composer Matthew Bourne hadn't even touched the keys of his piano. But he wasn't just sitting idly by as Zubot and Lee drew long, tense lines from their instruments or drummed on their strings with their bows. Instead, he beat on the inside frame of the piano like it was a drum. He ran his fingers along the strings like it was a harp. At one point, he even thwacked it with a towel. The impressive three-way improvisation sometimes shifted into quiet, almost meditative states, then built into thundering crescendos before releasing into dark, sweet melodies. Although Bourne had never played with the two Vancouver-based musicians-he even forgot Zubot's name when it came time for the introductions-all three displayed such remarkable skill, talent, lyricism, and wit that the chemistry between them was instant and complete...

Jennifer Van Evra, Tony Montague, and Alexander Varty, straight.com - Jazz Notes

Articles & Interviews

Interview with Gordon B Isnor for Left Hip Magazine

Electric Dr. M article by Colin Buttimer in Perfect Sound Forever