The Forge in Camden may well have that Friday feeling this week as guitarist Hannes Riepler beams in with a pretty extraordinary band to launch his debut album The Brave.
Riepler is pretty special himself, and since taking hold of the Tuesday jam at Charlie Wright’s in Hoxton over the past two years, the Austrian has got himself firmly established.
In his early-thirties he has written all the tunes on The Brave, just released by Huddersfield indie jazz label Jellymould.
With roots in the acoustic jazz of the 1950s and 60s, he’s joined on the album and at the Forge by piano star Kit Downes; Ma saxman Tom Challenger; Cornish bassist Ryan Trebilcock; and Kairos 4tet drummer, Jon Scott.
The album is urban sounding at times, despite the mountain air evoked in ‘Tyrol, Tyrol’, the song Riepler says charts his journey from his homeland to the big city, Amsterdam and now London.
Playing a 1980s Gibson Chet Atkins Country Gentleman that evoke sounds steeped in the tradition with an ear to the ground for contemporary jazz guitar particularly post-Kurt Rosenwinkel, Riepler is raring to go. Check him out, you might be too.
Stephen Graham
The Forge is on Delancey Street. Tickets: www.forgevenue.org