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Thought-Fox: part of the new wave of the Irish jazz scene

Named after a Ted Hughes poem Thought-Fox are a world away from a Hughesian landscape, with the poet’s somewhat severe and even brutalistic grasp of the natural world a long way distant. With singer Lauren Kinsella’s voice the main distinguishing feature, My Guess (Diatribe) opens with the knotty ‘Nightlight’, which might have benefited, though, from being placed much later in the album. Kinsella’s advanced approach compares immediately to a singer such as Gretchen Parlato, so it’s not a big blustery wave of noise but one that favours asides and confidences, syllabic invention, and daring intervallic leaps, with a control at low volumes that can translate to a bigger effect. The singer is a confidante, as it were, to the instrumentalists who respond from her hints and cues.

‘Ideas burning brightly’

Thought-Fox are that bit different, with a bespoke rhythm imperative, and Simon Roth on drums sculpts this alternative direction with a growing sense of unforced momentum as the album develops. By ‘Worm of Thought’ (inspired by The Waste Land) when the album gains a free improv impetus both he and Kinsella have clearly found common ground, a sort of “peace of mind” as the lyric to the title track later has it, as the singer’s ambition increases and the direction of the music becomes less mannered.

Remaining tracks ‘Malin’s Chai’ (the best melody by far and most involved band interplay), ‘Celia’, and title track ‘My Guess’ build on the promise shown first in ‘Worm of Thought’. There’s probably an even better album inside this one crying to get out but it’s clear that a fine new singer with ideas burning brightly inside and the right improvising attitude has arrived. For that in a scene often bereft of original approaches we should be very grateful. Stephen Graham

My Guess is released on Monday 6 May. Thought-Fox play the Vortex in London on 8 May