Ivan the tolerable is a band that I have seen on numerous festival lineups but this is the first music of theirs that I have actually listened to. Ivan The Tolerable is Oli Heffernan on Bass, Keys and drones aided by regulars Ben Hopkinson on sax. Thomas House on Guitar and Mees Siderius on drums. The music defies catagorizing as its pretty loose. Certainly heavy on the jazz influence with heavy doses of sax and loose drumming style but then on tracks like “Godhead” the chugging guitar kicks in to provide a completely different feel punctuated by occasional sax blasts. “Black Pyramid” adds some tribal percussion to the mix. “Tangled Hair” again employs some tribal rythm and various drones to go along with a solid bassline. My favorite parts of the album are the more drone\ambient influenced pieces with subdued sax like on “Aleph III” or “The Centre Is Everything” which close out the album. The outstanding track here is the opening track “Prologue Canto” which has nice pacing, less chaotic saxaphone and a nice tremlo effect on the drone to create a some atmosphere. Some may find the mix here to be a bit challenging as the sax definately is front forward but there’s plenty to enjoy here as well. There is definatley a unique crossing of styles here that both embodies chaos and grounds itself in open space and atmosphere.
Released by Echodelick (USA) and in the UK from their Bandcamp page which is sold out for now.
