Andy Bell & Masal

Common Primitives is the second collaborative album between Andy Bell (Ride guitarist, Oasis bassist) and Essex-based harp and synth duo Masal. It’s a stunning, meditative collection which veers from kosmische to astral jazz by way of Turkish folk tunes and all the way back again.

Their first outing, 2023’s acclaimed Tidal Love Numbers, consisted of four lengthy and almost ambient tracks and is included here on vinyl for the first time as part of a two-record set with the new album. By contrast, the seven tracks that make up Common Primitives are almost concise, but also a lot more layered and complex.

“We tend to work from initial, free-jammed ideas, building form and arrangement from there,” explains Masal’s Al Johnson. “Above all, we believe you should go where the vibe takes you.”

For Andy, that vibe was very much jazz legend Pharoah Sanders’ classic 1977 album Pharoah, which was reissued a few years ago.

“It puts me into a hypnotic state,” he explains. “That’s why I worked with more guitar loops on this record. The Tisziji Muñoz part on ‘Harvest Time’ has had me in a vice-like grip for the last three years and it arrives here via the Vini Reilly filter.”

For Özlem Simsek, there is nostalgia, too, and she even adds vocals as well as her heavenly harp to the opening track, ‘After Kâtibim’, based on a traditional Turkish folk song she had sung as a child growing up in Istanbul.

From there, the album takes us on a real journey, with the apt, impressionistic titles added by Andy once it had all been pieced together. There’s the beautiful, elegant ‘I Swear We Are Infinite’; the atmospheric ‘Yuzuki Fighting Spirit’ and the beatific ‘Soap And Water’. ‘Tower Of Babylon’ was named after the novelette by Ted Chiang, its structured creation reflecting that in the story; first single ‘The Morning Of The Trip’ finds Andy playing his guitar “as if it was a waterfall”. The journey ends with ‘Rudi’s Dream – The Third Bardo’, the trio accelerating onto the autobahn for a krautrock crescendo inspired by their studio’s resident cat.

Record 1 - Tidal Love Numbers

A1. Murmuration Of Warm Dappled Light On Her Back After Swimming

A2. The Slight Unease Of Seeing A Crescent Moon In Blue Midday Sky

B1. Tidal Love Conversation In That Familiar Golden Orchard

B2. A Pyramid Hid By Centuries Of Neon Green Undergrowth

Record 2 - Common Primitives

A1. After Kâtibim

A2. I Swear We Are Infinite

A3. Yuzuki Fighting Spirit

B1. Soap And Water

B2. Tower Of Babylon

B3. The Morning Of The Trip

B4. Rudi’s Dream – The Third Bardo