"Firstly, I feel this music finds yet another way of investigating the saxophone / bass / drums format, without repeating the approach of any of its illustrious forebears in the BF catalogue. Phil Hargreaves has developed a quite unique and extremely personal voice on the saxophone - one which allows him to contribute freely but without ever dominating or railroading the ensemble through sheer physical power. Over the years Rob and I have worked hard to find a language which would best contextualise this language, with the opportunities it presents; this excellent CD is the result.

Whilst this music is probably free jazz for the majority of the time, it remains non-hierarchical throughout - which is a particular pleasure. Secondly, Phil (who recorded this music) has excellently captured the acoustic sound of my bass. The BF catalogue contains numerous CDs where for whatever reason I regret the recorded bass sound (I'm sure the bass players among you will understand...) - but this is most definitely not one of them!"

Review------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The three grizzled faces on the sleeve of amere3's new album Aplicate aren't the musicians, but a detail from Hieronymous Bosch's 1515 picture Christ carrying the Cross.

Two of the musicians were born in Leeds in 1959. Phil hargreaves carries a tenor and soprano saxophone and Simon H Fell his acoustic bass.

The youngest, Rob Dainton, Bolton-born in 1976, carries his drums into a Liverpool studio.

Hargreaves describes Aplicate as a “three-way conversation,” which, Fell adds, “remains non-hierarchical throughout,” without the horn in a commandist role.

Fell commends Hargreaves a having a “unique and extremely personal voice on the saxophone, one which allows him to contribute freely wihout ever dominating or railroading the ensemble by sheer physical power.”

Aplicate is produced by Fell's pioneering label Bruce's Fingers, which has been at the heart of British free jazz for well over two decades.

From the outset with the first track Yesterday's Filth, the musicians' empathy seems so natural that it is almost as if this is a one-man trio at work after 10 years of sound communion.

When the pace slows right down with Fell's bow stroking and scraping his strings next to Dainton's crackling drums and Hargreaves's sucking and spitting tenor, there is startling new noise afoot in Liverpool.

Metamorphisis (it is amere3's spelling) begins with some extraordinary bass and drums, with Hargreaves's warbling tenor gradually taking fire.

If you sit in a park, a garden or a countryside venue, you may hear around you the groundings of these sounds, metamorphosed to free jazz studio performance.

In this sense, nothing could be closer to the real world than this music, which is perhaps why, with Fell's huge striding bowed sounds, the next track is aptly called Something About Exactitude and Truth.

No wonder Fell declared of Hargreaves's sound engineering: “Phil, who recorded this music, has excellently captured the acoustic sound of my bass.”

Hargreaves's soprano almost whistles in The Fat Corner above Dainon's world of drums, and his tenor carries a Leeds and Liverpool blues timbre throughout Between Throat and Chin, with his bandmates in full unison.

Levitation seems to be the place of At What Height do You Hover? With Fell's springing bass the primary means of leverage.

As for Bruce's Fingers, Hargreaves wrote to me: “It's a pleasure and privilege to be part of that canon. All props to Simon for curating and playing with it, and here's to its survival and flourishing in these uncertain times.” Not half.

Chris Searle, Morning Star------------------------------------------------------