The Golden Age of Steam
Raspberry Tongue
BDV 1086

James Allsopp - saxophone, bass clarinet, compositions
Tim Giles - drums
Kit Downes - Hammond Organ, Wurlitzer


Press reviews

"It's an intelligent debut - and has absolutely nothing to do with trains"
Daniel Spicer (Jazzwise) ***

"...about as far removed from dinner party music as you can get – unless, that is, you enjoy subjecting your guests to unsettling grooves and Hammer Horror atmospherics... not an easy listen but patience is rewarded."
(Robert Shore, London Metro)

To read full Metro feature with James Allsopp pic here

"Sax/Hammond/drums trio GAOS - a freewheeling post-fusion improv unit that allows astonishing saxophonist James Allsopp, keys ace Kit Downes and drummer Tim Giles to explore the outer limits of Ayler, Beefheart and Ligeti." (Time Out)

"The Golden Age of Steam offer a tasty spin on trio music, showing how much scope jazz has for new combinations of instruments, and as such stands loosely in the lineage of Tim Berne's feted Hard Cell and the not so feted Ibrahim Electric."
Kevin LeGendre (BBC Music online)

"...when they hit their stride the trio create powerful and absorbing music that owes little to jazz conventions but much to jazz's informing sense of creative freedom."
Kenny Mathieson (The List)

"...no-nonsense, full-on music from some of the scene's freshest talents'
(Chris Parker, Vortex website).

This is the debut recording from The Golden Age of Steam, a new trio performing music composed by reeds player James Allsopp and featuring the outrageous drum stylings of other Fraud co-leader Tim Giles alongside the Hammond organizing of keyboard wizard Kit Downes, winner of the BBC Jazz Award for Rising Star in 2007. These compositions attempt to create new structural spaces for improvisation by establishing highly ambiguous soundworlds that explore the intangible area inbetween tonality, rhythm, and total improv freedom. These pieces are inspired by the combination of anarchic playfulness and formal logics of Ligeti's music, the joyous sax thunder of Coltrane and Ayler and the twisted lyricism of Captain Beefheart among others.

The Golden Age of Steam were featured on Radio 3's Jazz on 3 recorded at the 2009 Cheltenham Jazz Festival

James Allsopp and Tim Giles were key figures in the band Fraud that had a major success at the 2007 festival; but with Kit Downes the material is free-er, spacier and more thoughtful and contemplative. But it is in that area of music that combines structure with freedom and moves from composition to improvisation and back in interesting and unpredictable ways.

LOOP Collective Festival Review Feb 2010
Chris Parker
...Giles also took the drum chair in the evening's closing act, the Golden Age of Steam, a trio completed by keyboardist Kit Downes and tenor/bass clarinet player James Allsopp. Like Blink, they operate in the hinterland between structure and freedom, but draw more readily on the seething, raw power that characterises the music produced by another Allsopp/Giles band, Fraud, than on the more restrained acoustic subtleties of Mick, Fincker and Clarvis. In Allsopp the band has an engaging, relaxed spokesman, capable of drawing audiences into his relatively eccentric soundworld (tune titles such as 'Goldfish Nightmare', 'Imaginary Handbag' and 'Butterdome' a good indication of the originality of his compositional approach) with perhaps surprising ease, given that the textures produced by Downes in particular are frequently startlingly unpredictable. Culminating in a robust visit to the closing two tracks on their forthcoming album, Raspberry Tongue , 'Eyepatch' and 'Oboe or Glockenspiel', this was a rousing hour's music and a fitting climax to another rich and varied Loop Collective programme."

Full Metro Review (June 2010)

Citing inspirations from Ligeti and Coltrane to Captain Beefheart, they sculpt progressive aural explorations of space that range in character from avant-garde classical to deconstructed blues.

Their debut album, Raspberry Tongue (Babel), is about as far removed from dinner party music as you can get – unless, that is, you enjoy subjecting your guests to unsettling grooves and Hammer Horror atmospherics. Opener Mr Apricot/Imaginary Handbag is a masterclass in unease from rising keyboard star Kit Downes, who alternates between Hammond organ and Wurlitzer. Meanwhile, the title track and Eyepatch provide ample opportunities for ear-shattering ensemble wig-outs, Allsopp's sax squawking its way into the stratosphere above Tim Giles's brilliantly empathetic drumming. It's not an easy listen but patience is rewarded.

CD Available to purchase from our shop here or by clicking on the pic above