Lucien Johnson – ‘Ancient Relics’

By londonjazz on 17 April 2024 • ( Leave a comment )

Lucien Johnson – Ancient Relics
(Deluge Records. Album review by Bruce Lindsay)

Sometimes, album and song titles make it pretty obvious what sort of sounds are going to be heard. Sometimes, things are less obvious. That’s the case with Lucien Johnson’s latest. Neither the album title, Ancient Relics, or track titles such as “Escape Capsule,” or “Space Junk” give too much away about the music on this album, one of the coolest, most positive and spiritually uplifting records to appear for quite some time.

New Zealander Lucien Johnson moved to France in his early twenties to work in the free jazz scene in Paris. After playing with musicians including bassist Alan Silva he returned to New Zealand, where he’s now based once again. Ancient Relics, recorded in The Surgery in Wellington, is his second album as leader, following 2021’s Wax / / / Wane, and features half a dozen of Johnson’s compositions. Johnson, on saxophones and piano, is joined by a quintet of other players — Natalia Lagi’itaua Mann on harp, Johnathan Crayford on piano and Wurlitzer piano, Tom Callwood on double bass, Julien Dyne on percussion and Cory Champion on drums and vibraphone. It’s a sympathetic, talented, sextet, suited to the production of music that well-deserves its description as a mystical and beautiful collection of tunes.

The album is available as a vinyl LP or on digital platforms — this review is based on the LP, which features three tunes per side, most coming in at around the 5^1/2to 6^1/2minute mark. There are certainly echoes of John Coltrane, Alice Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders (and British artists such as Nat Birchall), but Johnson seems to draw on more than these worthy inspirations, creating music that also has hints of psychedelia, blues and Latin grooves.

Ancient Relics opens with two cool, laid-back, tunes — “Ancient Relics” and “Embers” — both characterised by a spacious, economical, approach from the ensemble. “Ada” follows, closing side one of the vinyl album in upbeat, danceable, fashion, with Wurlitzer piano and vibes contrasting well with Johnson’s mellow tenor tone. The titles of the final three tracks — “Escape Capsule,” “Space Junk” and “Satellites” — suggest some sort of sci-fi related thematic link, but there’s no evidence for this theory in the music itself. “Escape Capsule” is slinky and seductive, building from a simple yet effective groove. “Space Junk” is the album’s psychedelic blues moment, layers of saxophone, harp, piano and percussion all underpinned by Callwood’s deep, resonant, bass. “Satellites” opens with a cascade of notes from the harp and percussion before Johnson enters and the tempo accelerates to create a tune described, not unjustly, as “a Pharoah Sanders-esque celebration of astronomical proportions.”