Woven Not Stranded Liam Ryan

• 1 Cosmic Lounge 06:03
• 2 Afrodisiac 04:19
• 3 Get Jive! (2021 Mix) 04:38
• 4 Royal Blues (2021 Mix) 05:57
• 5 Waltz for Amanda 04:42
• 6 Soul Refrain 05:04
• 7 Soul Refrain (Mudshark Monday Mix) 06:04
• Total Runtime 36:47

Info for Woven Not Stranded

Woven Not Stranded is the third in the M2M trilogy and a homage to my musical roots - from playing disco in Auckland clubs 6 nights a week, years of touring playing rhythm and blues and jazz and, before all of that my love of classical music and my early days playing violin in orchestras. It's eclectic; it's all here. The title, Woven Not Stranded, is a nod to my inspiring grandmother Elsie who was a weaver and poet. She practised her art in the middle of nowhere up the Awatere Valley in the South Island NZ. I often feel the same solitude working on my music in the provinces - especially in The Time of Covid. And yet we all remain connected. By the strands of whanau and aroha that bind us. Woven Not Stranded.

There are two tracks featuring Waihī singer Sarah Spicer, both remixes of previous singles. Get Jive is fun club groove, a well-constructed funk tune exhorting everyone to dance, with a great horn section. Then, on Royal Blues, Sarah really gets stuck in and shows what an impressive blues singer she is. Approaching this sort of music, very slow and in the grand style of 30s big band blues, you need to have real character and Sarah delivers in spades.

There’s a change of direction with Waltz For Amanda (presumably a song for Liam’s wife: everyone should be lucky enough to have their name attached to such beautiful music), which heads into the wide open prairies of Aaron Copland Americana and features drop dead gorgeous chromatic harmonica from Haggis MacGuinness.

I must mention some - because of space only some - of the musicians, all of whom provide stellar contributions: Guitarists Nick Granville, Dean Hetherington, Chet O’Connell and Regan Perry, English bassist Peter Stroud (ex-Peter Green), Rodger Fox on trombone and drummer Steve Garden.

There are also two takes on Soul Refrain, another remarkably funky horny tune. The instrumental version has a harp solo from Midge Marsden and a fantastic trumpet outing from Mike Booth, while the “Mudshark Monday Mix” reaches back to days of yore, when many a musician ended up living in Raglan and the regular Monday night gigs there became legend.

It’s one of many highpoints on the album, conjuring up the smoky music-soaked nights with a poem of Liam’s voiced by Malaysian Amir Yussof, sitting somewhere sonically between Robbie Robertson and Alabama 3.

It’s a cathartic finish to an album that will make a perfect summer backdrop, and contains music of such quality that it will probably end up on continual repeat. Damn fine work all round – stunning stuff.

Liam Ryan, vocals, Hammond, pianos, bass, synthesizer, strings
Sarah Spicer, vocals
Nick Granville, guitar
Dean Hetherington, guitar
Chet O'Connell, guitar
Regan Perry, guitar
Peter Stroud, bass
Alex Nyman, saxophone
Hayden Baird, saxophone
Rodger Fox, horns
Jack Harre, horns
Mike Booth, horns
Steve Garden, drums
Josh Sorenson, drums
Midge Marsden, harp
Haggis Macguiness, harp
Amir Yussof, percussion, voice

Liam Ryan
is a keyboard player and occasional singer. Back in the 1980s he was part of The Narcs; a decade or so later he had a band called Torch Songs, which played many a jazz festival and suchlike events.

He also plays with Midge Marsden and is a keyboard player Rodger Fox calls to back overseas artists. And more, much more of course – Liam is 70 now, and has been at it for half-a-century, so he’s done stuff...

Woven Not Stranded is largely a collection of melodic instrumental grooves with fantastic soloing and the occasional vocal. It covers expansive musical territory, and from a technical perspective sounds nothing less than sensational: crisp, wide, warm, beautifully balanced and three-dimensional in its soundscapes.

Things start in relatively unassuming fashion with Cosmic Lounge, an easy-listening sax-led piece, after which a Spanish guitar kicks into Afrodisiac and we’re definitely in world music territory, with backwards sounds and rhythmic flamenco flourishes. There’s a driving melodic orchestral string pattern along with vocal chanting and it’s very groovy indeed. There’s a high level of attention to detail here: everything fits and flows and every space seems proportionate and considered.

This album contains no booklet.