Fulborn Teversham @ The Shed, Hovingham Village Hall. 2nd May 2009

One of many of supreme jazz drum being Seb Rochford’s groups is hitting The Shed this weekend yet again. I’ve had the pleasure of seeing Polar Bear twice and the band tonight Fulborn Teversham just the once in this shed of a venue. Seb is joined by long time collaborator in such bands as Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear Pete Wareham on Sax, Nick Ramm on Nord synth and Alice Grant on vocals. They make one hell of a punk infused, experimental jazz racket unlike anything I’ve really heard before. They drift from sweet mellow smokey jazz numbers to full on balls to the wall skronk sessions, they even manage to sound something like ye olde seaside music at times mixed with a hammer horror soundtrack, interesting stuff.

A pint of Shed bitter a hand full of nuts and Fulborn Teversham take the stage, opening with a set of instrumentals in the first half then joined by Alice in the second for some vocal workouts. ‘Count Herbert II’ opens things nicely with a Transylvanian vibe with tweaked synths, elaborate drums and skronky sax. The mood ebbed and flowed from punked out hardcore jazz to deep and mellow ballads about love in a sweet melancholic style. Throughout the night pretty much everything of debut album, ‘Count Herbert II’ was played including maybe two or three new tracks.

The musician-ship on show tonight was something else, this group and all their projects blow me away each and every. Nick on the Nord really does make some quality sounds ranging from deep bass to skewed 8-bit-like gameboy, it’s a joy to hear. Seb’s drums are tight and varied as always playing some full on funk licks this time as well as almost 80’s like stuff in the ballads. Pete on sax can make eerie atmospheres or really crank it up and build layers of psychedelic hard rock-like melodies; he really takes you with him. Alice has such a wicked voice that can go from soft and delicate to all out punky shouts; she has a knack for lyrics too.

Highlights have to be, ‘Beachtune’, ‘Castle Music’, ‘Amazing’ and the closer ‘Silent’. To be fair it was all quality and The Shed bitter has made me forget some names. It was also a special day for The Shed’s head fella Simon, it being his birthday and all so much respect to him for that and putting on so many excellent nights.