Love Square at Kumeu Arts - Saturday August 22nd
Nick Atkinson and Finn Scholes aren't your usual horn section. Sure, there are the amazing gigs parping alongside Nadia Reid, Tami Neilson, Dave Dobbyn or the Come Together Band, but really this friendship is based on a thirst for adventure. They've circumnavigated NZ and Rakiura aboard Nick's 46' wooden ketch. In the Southern Alps they've visited Harper's Rock, Ivory Lake and Dennistoun Pass on arduous trans-alpine crossings and sometimes, when they're touring, they can try and bag a peak near the road. Last year they took it up a notch bringing drummer and crampon newbie Alistair Deverick along for an adventure in the ranges south of Mt Aspiring. They spent a week among the icy mountains that rear up above the Dart River. The trio slept beneath rock overhangs and beech trees. In old corrugated huts they hatched a plan for a new Love Square album called The Lighthouse. They measured their steps across thawing neve and scree humming new tunes and discussing their drooping watchlists.
The fruits of these discussions can be tasted at Kumeu Arts on Saturday August 22nd. As well as a smattering of new instruments, Nick, Finn and Al have a new album and they're bursting to play an exceptionally loyal and well-informed Kumeu Arts crowd their latest numbers.
For those who haven't heard Love Square they're a horn-heavy trio of multi-instrumentalists. One wonders if the principle joy of the band isn't in fact the packing of as many instruments as possible into ageing hatch-backs. Keyboards ancient and new, saxophones and clarinets by the half-dozen. Trumpets, trombones, tambourines and enough maracas to get half the audience involved.
They play exotic jazz tempos with worldwide influences. Think Chi-Cha and Cumbia from the high Andes merged with Ethio-jazz from the clubs of Adiss Ababa. Enjoy Jamaican skanks and New Orleans marches. The band also bend and sway to the whims of the crowd. They can barely help themselves.
