The Comet Is Coming and Daisy Dickenson present Hyper- Dimensional Expansion Beam
Manchester Aviva
(As part of the Manchester International Festival)
July 2023
It’s a perfect moment.
A rocket ride on the free jazz skronk from Shabaka’s transcendental triangle of a trio reaches out to the heavens with attendant visuals from Daisy Dickinson jamming to the fluid sounds in the brand new Aviva venue in Manchester city centre.
It’s a perfect Manchester International Festival moment – a collision of art forms from artists at the top of their game and a sensual massage on every level that you can get lost in.
The new venue on the banks of the Rover Irwell is the home hub of the biannual festival and is a stunning new build. The sound and vision is impeccable, and you are immersed and lost in the moment. Spellbound in the stunning music and mind-melting visuals.
In what is mooted to be their farewell tour, The Comet is Coming are at the top of their game. The plush concrete auditorium is filled with their thrilling sci-fi deep space jazz whilst Daisy Dickinson is visualising the sonics of the trio’s set and latest, and perhaps final album: Hyper-dimensional Expansion Beam. It’s like a hi-tech modern lysergic audio visual feast that takes the freak scene edge of the Syd Barrett’s Floyd or Sun Ra’s exquisite outer space jazz into the 21st century.
It’s a spiritual trip.
Maybe it’s smart to stop this trip before it gets boring, but you can’t help feeling regret that a band as honed as this is perhaps pulling the plug. One part electro-jazz they wander across all music genres with the freedom of great players. There is the daredevil approach of post-punk, there are the drones of Sunn O)) or left field metal, there is Afrofuturistic adventures or the eternal hum of trance or the electro warriors of Aphex Twin style digital pioneers.
In a magical evening, we enter the multiverse of sound with acclaimed sax player the charismatic Shabaka swaying gently side to side, lost in his shamanic grooves, leading his trio into deep space. Cosmic is perhaps an overused word in music circles, but tonight is not just cosmic but mind-blowing spiritual sax meeting electronics and frantic jazz drumming. It grooves. It swings and it soars.
Shabaka Hutchings reputation at the UK’s foremost jazzer is underscored tonight as he delivers those delicious runs and that sumptuous tone in perfect cascades of notes from skronk grooves to effortless flurries to his circular breathing that allows him to play waterfalls of free jazz notes whilst his sax somehow manages to cram every texture and nuance possible from the instrument in a myriad of captivating textures.
It’s thrilling stuff.
Watching someone who is a master of their instrument deliver perfection is always thrilling. The moods, atmospheres and tones he paints across the sonic canvas are thrilling to behold. He makes it look so easy as he stands there tall and imposing as the music pours out of him. The sax scurrying around the eternal trip of tracks like ‘Code’ that embraces pulsating prime time krautrock or the neo Hawkwind space rock trip criss crossing with an electronic backbeat provided the effervescent keyboard wizard Danalogue, aka Dan Leavers on his bank of keys.
It’s far out but takes you on the trip.
The audience are far from studious, though and are dancing back and forth like on the trio’s most loved track, ‘Summon the Fire’ from their first album Trust In the life-force of the Deep Mystery
A moment in time. A band at the top of their game. Like the adventure of Sun Ra recreated for the now this is a powerhouse performance that blows your mind but that you can dance to. Will we see their likes again? We can only hope…
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