Entropi. L-R: Olie Brice, Dee Byrne Matt Fisher, Rebecca Nash, Andre Canniere Photo credit Carl Hyde

Dee Byrne’s Entropi album launch
(Kings Place Hall Two. 29 September 2017. Review by Sebastian Scotney)

There are bands who can charm an audience with a carefree tune like It’s Time, stick to the song-form and play jaunty solos over its deft chord sequence. And there are bands who can take on the complete liberty – which is also a severe and self-imposed constraint – of having no formal structure and keep an audience rapt with no-holds-barred anything-can happen free improvisation, where the influence of the likes of Evan Parker and John Edwards is plainly audible. And then again, there are bands who build a theme steadily and reflectively from a lonely bass figure to the point where it becomes a prog rock anthem like In The Cold Light Of Day. And then there are bands who want/need/choose not to be pigeon-holed, but to do all of those things, to do them all very well, and to enjoy the contrast of  juxtaposing them. Dee Byrne’s Entropi is such a band.

And that is the interest and the fascination of hearing this group. All five players had evidently committed to learning all of the music by heart, so there was not a single sheet of manuscript paper to be seen on the stage of Kings Place Hall Two, and that sense of music which has been collectively nurtured was very strong. There is more about this important aspect in the interview which Dee Byrne did with Leah Williams.

An audience of supportive friends and musicians was there. But this is also a unit which has started to generate a buzz among a significant number of some the most inveterate and regular – and discriminating, and hard-to please! –  jazz gig-goers in London, who clearly like the variety and the quality of the band’s sound. The word is starting to get out. Entropi are now ready for bigger stages.