Reviews

Owl by The Owl Ensemble

Essen­tially, a string quar­tet with a jazz pulse, Owl Ensemble exude the exquis­ite mel­an­cho­lia that comes so nat­ur­ally with plan­gent cellos and viol­ins. Theirs is music of great clar­ity and space. On I See You, they point both for­wards – to the gently rip­pling wave­forms of min­im­al­ism – and back­wards: to some­thing that can only be described as enchant­ing bush music. But though Owl’s cre­at­ive driv­ing force, violinist/composer Olivia Moore can scrape and swing, as on the Stuff Smith-like inter­lude on the ram­bling Shall We Dance, her forte is art-house lyricism.….….….Sweet rather than severe, The Owl Ensemble tran­scend from the taste­ful to the sublime.

Amoghasiddhi

Nour­ished by Indian and jazz tra­di­tions, but with an eleg­ance that comes from her clas­sic­al train­ing, Olivia Moore’s violin has an East­ern tang that is genu­inely entrancing.

…her obvi­ous joy in play­ing swells through her impas­sioned but restrained violin and offers her audi­ence both an emo­tion­al and a cereb­ral fulfilment.

This debut record­ing from Manchester based viol­ist Olivia Moore is bust­ling with ideas and influ­ences. A fusion album, in the tra­di­tion­al sense, Moore com­bines ele­ments of clas­sic­al Indian music, Brit­ish folk and even Nordic jazz, to pro­duce some­thing alto­geth­er fresh and cosmopolitan.