Ill Considered, Precipice

One of London's finest bands strips to essentials

“What is an artist? He's a man who has antennae, who knows how to hook up to the currents which are in the atmosphere, in the cosmos; he merely has the facility for hooking on, as it were.”

—Henry Miller (The Paris Review, Fall 1962)

Is what we call life (or life force) essentially cosmic energy, prevalent and mutable? When we create things or use our minds in novel ways, are we tapping—beyond our own creativity—a singular, shared cosmic energy?

Many artists, including the 18th century poet and painter William Blake, describe their creativity as coming from outside them, a kind of god-given divine force. Some musicians actually sound as if they're channeling, so fierce and fluid are the notes, so unstructured yet complete are the resulting performances. It’s as if the music is playing them, not the other way around.

Just such an exhilarating, nonstop energy radiates from the London band Ill Considered.

The group sparked from a jam session in 2017. Drummer Emre Ramazanoglu got the notion to record a performance at his home studio. He invited electric bassist Leon Brichard and two of their friends, the saxophonist Idris Rahman (of the London-based Afrobeat/reggae combo Soothsayers) and percussionist Yahael Camara-Onono. Brichard liked what came out on tape and pressed some vinyl. A band was born.

The group’s 12 releases (give or take, depending on which live recordings “count”) span just 8 years, their freeform MO a constant: writing and performing in the moment, spontaneous composition built on the germ of a groove or rhythmic pattern. Satin Singh took over the percussion seat for a few years after their first LP. The band has of the flow and vibe of Eddie Henderson’s post-Bitches Brew LP Realization, Paul Horn’s expansive ambience, and John Zorn’s trip-wire chaos. Each album boasts broad-brush, high-contrast art by the typographer Vincent De Boer.

Rahman’s fountains of reedy riffs all but define the Ill Considered sound. His bright tone evokes Booker Ervin or Archie Shepp, while his precision and control call to mind Michael Brecker's way of gliding between and around notes. Dare I invoke the great Pharoah Sanders? Rahman’s playing is smoother, with less “burn” than Sanders—and also less body.

The band is dubby at times, raga-like at others, keeping fixed tempos anchored by melodic bass grooves. Ramazanoglu drums with a light touch, playing polyrhythmically rather than on the beat. This music is not about its compositions, per se. It’s about how well its performers channel their creative instincts.

The year 2021 was transitional, the album Liminal Space marking both the departure of Brichard (who appears on a few songs) and the arrival of bassist Liran Donin (of the quasi-jazz outfit Led Bib). Brichard's sensibility leans rock-reggae; Donin skews more broadly, toward rock but also folk and acoustic jazz. The shift in foundational character was smoothed by the introduction of guest musicians, among them percussionist Sarathy Korwar, tuba maven Theon Cross, and multi-instrumentalist Tamar Osborn (on flute).

Since then, Rahman and Donin have released a pair of superb meditations for sax, clarinets, and upright bass, the most recent of which, Shoals, came out just this month. Though Donin sticks to electric bass in playing with Ill Considered, his tone and style vary with his moods and creative instrument mods.

The latest Ill Considered album, Precipice, finds the group a trio once more. Some jazz evokes decidedly urban spaces (night clubs, concert halls). For me, Ill Considered evokes natural places: equatorial grottos, narrow ravines, waterfalls and caves. They allow space between notes for darkness to seep in, for sounds to map vast interiors. They hold attention by defying expectations. Their songs are not songs per se; they're sonic expeditions into nonexistent terrain—or rather, terrain created in the moment, existing only in performance.

Most songs remain in their starting key. What the songs lack in harmonic sophistication they make up for in group dynamics and individual spirit.

Have a listen to at least a few segments of this live-in-studio performance by the current trio:

The penultimate song on Precipice, “Solenopsis” (named for the genus that includes fire ants) underscores and then dials back the album's intensity, setting up “Alpenglow,” whose percussive harmonic “chimes” from Donin’s bass close the record in tender, delicate strains.

The quality of patience seems, oddly, a defining feature of Ill Considered’s music. I hear patience in the band’s willingness to ride a groove as long as their inclinations hold. There's no rush to resolution or anything like predictable structure. The musicians fixate on musical and sonic moments and play until they’re done. That these moments hold up to sustained encounters and repeated listening is all to the good.