Homemade Orchestra live

There are many intelligent musicians whose work defies casual categorization … the composer Colin Riley is one such musician, Riley’s “When Soft Voices Die” made excellent use of the rich mahogany sound of Whitehead and Baptiste with Zoë Martlew’s cello … “Oil on Water” producing a welcome grittiness as stark electric textures rubbed against mournful canons. Riley’s “Blue Space” situated the tenor saxophones in a beguiling soundscape that combined electronic tintinnabulation with live percussion; his spare arrangement of Peter Gabriel’s “Here Comes the Flood”, with vocals from the glamorous Kathleen Willison, held the audience rapt.