RE:BUILD is the debut album from the multi-award winning trombone quartet, Slide Action. As a group at the forefront of new British chamber music, Slide Action's driving aim is to develop music for trombones, working with composers and artists to push the boundaries of performance and composition. Since their formation in 2018, the quartet have had multiple competition successes, in 2021-22 they were Britten Pears Young Artists and on their first European tour enjoyed six sold-out concerts.
This album of new sounds and ideas is a near-seamless experience for the listener, featuring specially commissioned music from world-renowned British composers. Sitting between these commissions are 'Interludes', arranged by Slide Action members to journey the audience from one piece to the next.
The album opens with an homage. Henry Purcell's (1659-1695) March from the Music for the Funeral of Queen Mary, Z. 860 pays tribute to early music written for brass. Familiarity and security do not last long, as the introduction of electronic manipulation builds to thrilling acoustic complexity. The first commission, C. Exigua by Ryan Latimer, takes the listener on a rollercoaster of colours and textures inspired by a parasitic isopod. Drawing heavily on jazz and folk traditions, in Laura Jurd's Swamped the group's sound becomes more compact with less symphonic depth, as they jaunt along to the silky smooth close. Emily Hall's Close Palms is relentless yet gentle. The historically oft-comedic glissando is now used as an instrument of tension throughout the piece. Back to organised chaos, Hairy Pony Estampie is Alex Paxton's maximalist tour-de-force headliner that breaks down every single barrier of what, why and how brass chamber music 'should' be. The album concludes with Joanna Ward's Playing Frisbee May 2022, a product of a partnership with Slide Action formed at Snape Maltings. Inspired by a video of the group playing frisbee, Joanna constructed a semi-notated graphic score where each page is a new game with an increasingly complicated set of rules.
