Music: Mammal Hands – Instrumental jazz groovers are in town

If you like GoGo Penguin, you just might well feel the same way about the similarly monikered Mammal Hands, a three-piece who have just released their second album, ‘Floa’, on the same label as the aforementioned, on Gondwana Records.
An old Norse word that means to deluge or to flow, ‘Floa’ is a neat summation of their music. Gondwana’s founder Matthew Halsall has also produced ‘Floa’, while members of the Gondwana Orchestra also contributed.
Nick Smart (piano), Jess Barrett (drums/tabla) and Jordan Smart (sax) fuse jazz, folk and electronica in creating their hypnotic groove based pieces that has won over the likes of Bonobo, Gilles Peterson and Jamie Cullum.
Drawing on a rich well of influences from Sufi and shamanic African trance music, Irish and Eastern European folk music, to Steve Reich, Pharaoh Sanders, and Philip Glass and more contemporary electronica influences, their music is built around deceptively simple sounding ideas that are lent power through the use of repetition and rhythmic loops.
They have been compared to both Portico Quartet and GoGo Penguin for the way in which they navigate the choppy waters between contemporary dance music and jazz. 
Latest Music Bar, 8 June, 8pm, £8