This week’s Feature Album Oaatchapai is the fourth studio release from Melbourne bassist-composer Sam Anning. Oaatchapai is the follow-up release to Anning’s multi award-winning 2018 release Across a Field as Vast as One.
Anning is one of his generation’s most talented and sought-after double bassists and composers. He has released four critically acclaimed albums, toured extensively throughout the world, and collaborated with many of Australia’s top jazz artists.
On Oaatchapai, Anning showcases his compositional flair with references to indie rock, echoes of Charles Mingus and spoken word soundscapes. Anning is joined by an objectively brilliant line-up of musicians including Andrea Keller on piano, Mat Jodrell on trumpet, Carl Mackey and Julien Wilson on saxophone, Theo Carbo on guitar and Rajiv Jayaweera on drums.
Oaatchapai was recorded in just over two days in a studio in Nunawading, Victoria. After experimenting with different methods of expressing shade and light through harmonic progression, Anning developed a way of categorising the major modes from light to dark, with the invention of five new modes that would complete the cycle gradually from dark to light. The title track uses this harmonic method as its underpinning concept. In this piece Anning is trying to depart from the constraints and gravitational pull of traditional harmonic sequences that permeate much of diatonic music, with a system of his own devising.
With this suite as the centrepiece of the album, compositions that made their way into the group’s repertoire over the years were adapted to complement and balance out the album.
Oaatchapai is out now. Tune into PBS all week for your chance to win a copy of the album. Not a PBS member? Sign up now for your chance to win.
TOP TRACKS WE'RE LOVING
A.R. Wilson - 'Moonlight Flat'
The Pro-Teens - 'One Beer'
WILSN - 'You Know Better'
Checkerboard Lounge - 'Money Man'
EXEK - '(I'm After) Your Best Interest'
Delivery - 'Personal Effects'
Divide and Dissolve - 'Prove It'
MY DISCO - 'Meshes'
Kitchen Witch - 'Sunrise'
