Author Archives: Joseph Neff

Pianist, arranger, composer, bandleader: Canadian-born Gil Evans stands as one of the most important orchestrators in the history of jazz. Perhaps most famous for his work with Miles Davis, Evans was a versatile creator who could easily adapt to new stylistic developments and then push the music further forward. Cut in 1957, Gil Evans & Ten is his debut as a leader, establishing his work as vivid and distinctive. Getting a limited edition mono repress on 180 gram vinyl for Record Store Day Black Friday 2023, it’s a superb point of entry into the artistry of a master.

Gil Evans is the arranger on Miles Davis’ Birth of the Cool, which features recordings made in 1949-’50, most of them released on a series of 78rpm discs but compiled on LP for the first time in ’57 by Capitol, the same year that Miles Ahead, Evans’ second collaboration with Davis, which brought the trumpeter together with a 19-piece orchestra, was released by Columbia.

The knockout success of Miles Ahead and the rekindled interest in Birth of the Cool were certainly a major factor in Evans recording his first album as leader that same year. Miles Ahead was cut over a series of sessions in May of ’57 (released in October) while Gil Evans & Ten was recorded across three sessions in September and October of ’57 (released early the following year), with the albums sharing a handful of personnel.

Heard on both are trumpeter John Carisi, trombonist Jimmy Cleveland, French horn player Willie Ruff, alto saxophonist Lee Konitz (listed on Evans & Ten under the pseudonymous anagram Zeke Tolin), and bassist Paul Chambers. For his debut, Evans sits down at the bench, which was frequent on his own early releases (for Miles Ahead, it’s Wynton Kelly on piano).

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Based in New York City, The Du-Rites are the funk-centric duo of Jay Mumford on drums, keyboards, and percussion and Pablo Martin on guitar, bass guitar, and synthesizer. They’ve released seven albums since joining forces and Old Maid Entertainment / Ilegalia Records’ release of “Go Funk Me” b​/​w “Bucket” brings 7-inch number eight to their discography. Offering two club movers, the platter can be purchased through the duo’s Bandcamp singly, in a pair via the Cuttin’ Doubles discount for DJs, in a combo with their groove-tastic LP from last year Plug It In, and as a signed test pressing in an edition of three, all available now. Fans of classic funk with contemporary vitality should investigate.

The Du-Rites is shaped up by two musical long-haulers, with Pablo Martin a mastering engineer, guitarist for Tom Tom Club, and half of Lulu Lewis with his partner Dylan Hundley. Jay Mumford’s studio experience as engineer and producer for a wide range of hip-hop artists is extensive as he released a slew of recordings in the genre as J-Zone.

Around 2011, Mumford began playing the drums as he transitioned away from hip-hop, and in due time, he started working as a studio and touring drummer, contributing to sessions for Danger Mouse and Dan Auerbach and playing live with Adrian Quesada of the Black Pumas. Additionally, he cut a series of highly regarded drum break records, and since 2013 has collaborated with Martin in The Du-Rites, an avenue of expression Mumford considers his “heartbeat.”

As a funky endeavor, The Du-Rites tap familiar territory for inspiration. Although there is a vocal component to their sound, the duo operate a bit like Josie-era Meters but with an atmosphere that’s tangibly nearer to the now and in fact is a bit reminiscent of Money Mark Nishita, who just happens to be a guest on Plug It In.

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A large, percussion heavy ensemble from Senegal’s capital city of Dakar, Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff is releasing their debut album Magg Tekki on November 10 through the Sing a Song Fighter label of Stockholm, Sweden and Mississippi Records of Portland, OR. If the rhythmic groove is musically paramount to this band, the palette is broad as it features vocals, saxophone, flute, balafon, accordion, and kora in a deftly honed mix. Aficionados of international sound, here’s another one for the shelf.

For Magg Tekki, Assiko Golden Band de Grand Yoff feature poet Djiby Ly, Aziz Gning, Oscar Gomes and Alladı N’diaye on vocals, along with Dieugue Diop, Henry Coly, Vincent Mendy, Babacar Nging, Seydou Dia, François Bass, Abdoulahad Faye, Joacheme Mendy, Ndongo Faye, Laye Mangane, Bapis Faye and Japha as the percussion core, plus Djiby Ly on flute, and Ibrahima Camarra on balafon.

Additionally, there are contributions from Lina Langendorf on saxophone, Amanda Fritzén on accordion, Abdou Cissokho and Lamine Cissokho on kora, and Karl Jonas Winqvist, the Swedish musician and archivist who operates Sing a Song Fighter, on bells and rattles. Gning, Gomis, Ly, Mendy, N’diaye, and Abdou Cissokho are credited with individually composing Magg Tekki’s ten tracks.

The assurance on display is especially impressive given that this is the outfit’s first record, but then again, their impact on Dekar’s nightlife is described as considerable, a statement that rings true as it seems unlikely that a collective could bring this kind of heat without ample preparation. Opener “La Musique Du C​œ​ur” immediately establishes the primacy of the rhythm followed closely by a lead-backing vocal exchange and then horns brightening the groove.

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Remembering Bert Jansch in advance of his birthdate tomorrow.
—Ed.

There might be no better time than the present to be a record collecting fan of Bert Jansch. Vinyl reissues from all stages of the Brit-folk guitar linchpin’s career have been flowing into the racks for a while now, and we’re currently experiencing a crescendo of material from the late singer-songwriter.

The 1960s was flush with fingerpickers, and Bert Jansch was amongst the very best. Adding to his appeal, the Scottish troubadour was also a capable vocalist, solid songwriter, and a deft collaborator, first teaming with fellow guitarist John Renbourn; in short order the duo co-founded the progressive folk combo Pentangle.

Jansch’s eponymous debut and its follow-up It Don’t Bother Me, both issued in 1965, have endured as classics, and for those wishing to become conversant with the man’s work, they are the place to begin; last year Superior Viaduct issued the LPs singly, and both will be part of Earth Recordings’ upcoming box set of Jansch’s output for the Transatlantic label.

This period remains the most lauded stretch in the guitarist’s oeuvre, in part due to its consistency and sharpness of focus. 1966 brought third album Jack Orion, which both extends from and contrasts with its predecessor, the opening strains of banjo in “The Waggoner’s Lad” picking up where It Don’t Bother Me’s finale “900 Miles” left off. The instrumental switch intertwines productively with Renbourn’s guitar, as his role, having commenced on the prior disc’s “Lucky Thirteen,” is deepened across four Jack Orion cuts to positive effect.

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Formed in Sacramento, CA in the wind down of indie pop act California Oranges, Soft Science released their first full-length CD in 2011. Twelve years later, the band’s fourth album Lines is freshly available on vinyl, CD, and digital through Shelflife Records of Portland, OR with some international help from Fastcut Records in Japan and Spinout Nuggets in the UK. The sound is a blend of gal-voiced dreampop and shoegaze, with ten tracks given the lush and large treatment. While the equation isn’t new, Soft Science have discovered a few pathways to success in a well-trodden field and throw in a few welcome twists along the way.

In “Low,” Soft Science opens Lines with bold dreampop sweep, a slow motion swirling glide that, when turned up loud, connects like it could envelop and carry the listener away. It’s something of a prelude and also a bookend with the record’s closing track “Polar,” as what’s between leans into the melodic side of the dreampop spectrum.

This is exactly the scenario with “Grip,” a catchy and breathy bit of ’80s action that’s fortified with sheets of shoegazing amp gush. Katie Haley hits a nice balance of pop urgency and the ethereal, a combo that extends to “Deceiver” as the tempo slows and the track is awash in echo, the barbed edges keeping the sweetness in check.

It’s the fast-moving “Sadness,” with its currents of indie pop, that gives Lines a beneficial boost of energy as Haley’s singing keeps the progression focused. Matt Levine’s guitar gets especially raw in the midsection of “Kerosene” (note: not a Big Black cover), contrasting well with the synth and the electronics, which are credited to Ross Levine and Hans Munz, respectively. Bassist Becky Cale and drummer Tony Cale (Soft Science is truly a band of siblings) deliver the right amount of heft and propulsion.

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“The Return of Walter Daniels Meets Jack Oblivian and The Shieks” delivers exactly what the title promises, the 5-song, 33 1/3 RPM 7-inch from Black & Wyatt Records of Memphis extending a collaboration that reaches back to the mid-’90s, combining Daniels’ mouth harp and singing with the garage punk organizational acumen of Jack Oblivian. Featuring five inspired covers, this one’s a total keeper, available now or as soon as the wax arrives from Spain.

The background of Walter Daniels is extensive. Based in Austin, he first hit vinyl in the mid-’80s blowing bluesy, amped harmonica on “The Poor Man’s ZZ Top!,” the final 45 by punkers The Ideals, and did the same on Waltz​-​a​-​Cross​-​Dress Texas, the second LP by the noted cowpunk band Hickoids. But it was in the following decade that Daniels really broke out with numerous records, short and long, on a bunch of labels including Estrus and Sympathy for the Record Industry.

It was Sympathy that first teamed Daniels with The Oblivians and Monsieur Jeffrey Evans (of Gibson Bros. and ’68 Comeback) in ’95 for the 10-inch “At Melissa’s Garage,” which offered five distortion-laden covers of tunes by Juke Boy Bonner, Jackie Morningstar, Marty Robbins, Bo Diddley, and the Big Boys. A 2×7-inch follow-up, “Someday My Prince Will Come,” came in ’94, credited to Evans and ’68 Comeback (of which Jack Oblivian was a member under his birth name Jack Yarber), offering two Evans originals on the first disc and covers of tunes recorded by Ray Charles and Lowell Fulsom on the second.

As The Oblivians stand as one of the swankest of all ’90s garage-punk bands, any subsequent action from Jack is fully worthy of investigation, including his work (retaining the Oblivian moniker) with The Shieks. Released in 2016 by Mony Records (and reissued by Black & Wyatt in 2020), Lone Ranger of Love by the union is a true humdinger of an LP.

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The return to activity of Independent Project Records, founded by musician and graphic designer Bruce Licher way back in 1980, has been one of the sweeter developments on the contemporary scene, especially right now through a handful of vinyl releases that carry forward the label’s magnificent design aesthetic. As the bands are The Ophelias, Shiva Burlesque, and Scenic, the music is fully up to snuff. The Ophelias’ Bare Bodkin 2LP, mastered at 45 rpm, is out now, while Shiva Burlesque’s 2LP Mercury Blues + Skulduggery, and Scenic’s Incident at Cima (Expanded Edition) are both due November 17.

Along with running and creating Independent Project Records’ signature letterpress covers, Bruce Licher played in Savage Republic (after a tour upon reforming in 2002, he left the band), with the sleeves to their records, along with albums by Camper Van Beethoven (their debut Telephone Free Landslide Victory was released by IPR in 1985) helping to establish the look of the Independent Project Press.

The productivity of the press only flourished in the decade to follow as the design work expanded beyond the bands on the label, including Polvo’s “Celebrate the New Dark Age” 3×7-inch, Portastatic’s “Scrapbook” CD EP, Faust’s The Faust Concerts, Vol. 2 CD, Tone – The Guitar Ensemble’s Build and Sustain CDs (IPR split releases with Dischord Records), the Nels Cline Trio’s Ground 3×7-inch, Unrest’s Perfect Teeth 7-inch box set edition, and numerous releases by R.E.M. Since returning to action, IPR’s output has retained the same high quality standard, particularly in the three records under review here.

It was The Ophelias’ self-titled ’87 LP on Strange Weekend Records, with its inspired version of the traditional children’s folk tune “Mister Rabbit” a college radio hit, that helped land them a deal with Rough Trade. The signing surely raised The Ophelias’ profile at the time, but problems at the label eventually leading to bankruptcy negatively impacted the band’s longevity; as reported in David Fricke’s solid notes for Bare Bodkin, the budgets for their second LP Oriental Head (’88 ) and final set The Big O (’89) were pretty meager (the band’s Rough Trade debut was “The Night of Halloween” EP in ’87).

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Celebrating Keith Hopwood on his 77th birthday. —Ed.

Amongst the insults lobbed at Herman’s Hermits over the decades: fabricated, shallow, calculatedly commercial, utterly safe, disposable. At home they scored hits and in the US became one of the most popular imports of the mid-‘60s, though for many they are simply a Brit Invasion phenomenon connecting the Frankie Avalon/Fabian ‘50s scene and the eventual rise of bubblegum. Any folks curious as to what the fuss was all about might want to look into Their Greatest Hits.

Herman’s Hermits can be considered the UK equivalent of and predecessor to The Monkees, though they had to fight longer for a redemption that is still in progress, as many persist in evaluating them as eternal inhabitants of Squaresville, damned to never ascend from the circumstances thrust upon them by their era.

The ever-growing legion of Pop scientists will chalk this up to plain Rockism, but it’s a little more complex than that. Prior to getting captured in the viselike clutches of Mickey Most, Herman’s Hermits were a highly amiable small-time gigging Manchester-based band, one initially shouldering the rather unimaginative moniker of the Heartbeats; it was subsequent to Peter Noone’s arrival that a name change, reportedly inspired by managers Harvey Lisberg and Charlie Silverman, occurred.

Herman’s Hermits is a sly appellation; unlike the Heartbeats, it stuck in the memory, and it straddled the lingering and soon to resurface pop idol angle while acknowledging if not fully succumbing to the post-Beatles vogue for leaderless units. Once in league with Most the only member of the act to unfailingly appear on their studio efforts was the gent some mistakenly thought was Herman; the front-man, or in the parlance of a certain UK group called the High Numbers, The Face.

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With her eighth studio album Haunted Mountain, Jolie Holland reasserts her stature as one of the most electrifying performers on the contemporary scene. A deep collaboration with Buck Meek of Big Thief, who released his own album tiled Haunted Mountain in August, Holland’s set infuses an exploratory singer-songwriter framework with elements of folk roots and aspects of experimentation. A natural defier of genre boundaries, Holland grapples with serious, difficult subjects across the record to gripping effect. It’s out now on vinyl, compact disc, and streaming through Cinquefoil Records.

Jolie Holland is still occasionally lumped into the Americana category, but her latest reaffirms my belief that her music is much too tough and frequently troubling for that designation. And as detailed above, her work has become increasingly difficult to stylistically pin down. An emotionally resonant singer who has earned comparisons to Norah Jones alongside subtle similarities to Karen Dalton, Holland is also a talented guitarist. The music never takes a back seat to the singing in her work, as Haunted Mountain is at moments reminiscent of Vic Chesnutt, especially in album opener “2000 Miles,” and M. Ward.

There’s a fantastic unfurling of gnarled electric guitar at the end of “2000 Miles” that gives an extra kick to the already potent dark folky atmosphere. And then “Feet on the Ground” sharply veers away from a folk template, its musical foundation featuring a drum machine run through an amplifier, strangled surges of electric guitar and looped sounds. The effect hovers around the outskirts of post-rock, though Holland’s by now easily recognizable drawl lends cohesion. Lyrically, she confronts the horrors of exploitative political systems, directly yet poetically.

Featuring hard strumming, alternately droning and soaring fiddle, unfussy drumming and intermittent cascades of electric piano, “Highway 72” is a duet with Buck Meek that details the period in Holland’s life when she was homeless. The song’s power is inescapable as the hard reality is eased somewhat by the artist’s perseverance.

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Spherical, the latest from New York City’s Infrequent Seams label, makes available for the first time the fruits of an eight-hour session from 1994 featuring multi-instrumentalist Bernie Worrell, drum virtuoso Cindy Blackman Santana, and guitarist John King. The only objective of this meeting was to blend elements of rock, funk, blues, noise, and experimentation; i.e. a potent combo that gives Fusion a good name. Rediscovered by King in a box of unlabeled CDs, cassettes, and DAT tapes, the music is out now on LP with a download code offering three bonus tracks.

The late keyboard maestro Bernie Worrell is surely the most widely known member of this power trio, a prominence due specifically to his work in Parliament/Funkadelic, though his contribution in the ’80s to Talking Heads has been high of profile lately due to the recent theatrical rerelease of Jonathan Demme’s concert film Stop Making Sense.

Drummer and bandleader Cindy Blackman Santana has a deep résumé, having played with Pharoah Sanders, Bill Laswell, Lenny Kravitz, Joe Henderson, Hugh Masakela, Sam Rivers, Sonny Simmons, Angela Bofill and many more. In addition, she’s played Bitches Brew live in a band paying tribute to Miles Davis and in 2010 recorded Another Lifetime in homage to the groundbreaking fusion band of her mentor, Tony Williams. She currently plays in Santana alongside her husband Carlos Santana; they married in 2010.

Guitarist, violist, and composer John King’s credits are just as impressive, having played in the bands of David Moss, Butch Morris, and William Parker, along with leading his ’90s trio Electric World. He’s also received commissions for pieces from the Kronos Quartet, Bang on a Can All-Stars, and the Merce Cunningham Dance Co, amongst others, and has two recordings released by John Zorn’s Tzadik label, AllSteel (2006) and 10 Mysteries (2010).

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After a five year break, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages, Boston’s finest purveyors of stomp and shout, honk and holler, rockin’ soul with a garage punk edge are back with a new record, and it’s a ripsnorter. Recorded in May of 2023 in Valencia, Spain at the end of a lengthy European tour, time was not wasted in pressing and releasing the results. Glory is out now on vinyl and digipak CD through FOLC Records of Madrid, Spain.

Hitting record for the first time in 1984, Barrence Whitfield and the Savages was something of a throwback even then as they specialized in energetic no frills ’60s-style R&R with enough edge to appeal to Boston’s garage set; no surprise as there were connections to the Beantown band The Lyres, with that outfit’s guitarist Peter Greenberg a founding and current member of the Savages.

Two things helped the Savages to stand out. Foremost was the soulful belting of Whitfield (born Barry White) which added a legit roots component to a blend of originals and covers. The other aspect was saxophone playing (on their debut by Steve LaGrega) that tapped into the essence of pre-Beatle weekend dance party mania.

The Savages carried on into the mid-’90s with changes of personnel and a less aggressive sound, but after a long hiatus they came roaring back in 2011 with Savage Kings on the Munster label featuring Greenberg and original bassist Phil Lenker. For that album, Andy Jody joined on drums and Tom Quartulli on sax, and the lineup hasn’t changed since, though Glory does get a sustained injection of baritone sax from Spencer Evoy.

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Celebrating Dale Crover, born on this date in 1967. —Ed.

It’s not a bit surprising that a band on a label called Ipecac has released a record titled Freak Puke. The pleasant twist is that in reverting back to a trio with bassist Trevor Dunn, The Melvins have delivered their best release since 2006’s (A) Senile Animal.

The Melvins, by my count eighteen studio albums strong (not including collaborations), have become one of the longest-serving examples of the “heads down/amps turned way up” mode of rock ‘n’ roll expression, a style not known for its survivalist tactics. While the vast majority of groups specializing in music of comparable heaviness understandably lack the stamina and depth of creativity for creating worthwhile records over a period of more than a few years, The Melvins have managed to stay interesting for close to thirty.

Part of the secret might just be their refusal to fall comfortably into one single camp. Often hailed in mainstream coverage as a “godfather of grunge” due to geographical location and their music’s motions toward a punk/metal hybridization, and most importantly because of their close ties to Mudhoney and Nirvana (if not to Sub Pop proper), The Melvins were surprisingly (and in retrospect, understandably) indifferent to cultivating a forefather-esque association with a rock movement that would inevitably culminate in a big ol’ nasty backlash.

Signing the rather predictable ‘90s major-label deal with Atlantic (who just as predictably didn’t really know what to do with them), the then trio of guitarist Buzz Osborne (aka King Buzzo), drummer Dale Crover and not long for the band bassist Lori “Lorax” Black (aka child actress Shirley Temple’s daughter) retained a close relationship to the indie scene that spawned them, again as if sensing that the tide would inevitably turn in the other direction, with bands of their ilk being hung out to dry if found too dependent upon the corporate teat.

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Remembering Peter Tosh, born on this day in 1944. —Ed.

Live at My Father’s Place 1978 offers crisp audio clarity of a Peter Tosh performance originally broadcast live over radio via New York’s WLIR FM. While it’s unlikely to alter many opinions, positive or negative, of Tosh’s work at this stage of his career, it does accurately represent the man’s musical direction during a commercially productive and musically transitional period. 

Flash back to 1978, and Peter Tosh was in the midst of his most fertile commercial run. That year saw the release of Bush Doctor, his first album for Rolling Stones Records, a set that found him duetting with Mick Jagger on a Temptations tune. If Tosh wasn’t reggae’s biggest star at the time, he was sitting pretty secure in the number two spot.

While album-focused listeners might disagree, Peter Tosh’s early recordings endure as his strongest work, cohering into an unimpeachable stretch of singles both solo and as part of the Wailers; alongside Bob Marley and Bunny Livingston, the Wailers eventually cut a string of crucial LPs in the early ’70s, prior to Tosh and Livingston’s departure and the Wailers effectively shifting to Marley’s backing band.

However, the appraisals of Tosh’s post-Equal Rights LPs are decidedly varied. This is partly due to an increased attempt at scoring crossover success, which as detailed above, was fully realized. Although he’d been frequenting studios since the mid-’60s, Tosh didn’t release his full-length solo debut until 1976, after signing with Columbia. The record, Legalize It, remains his most well-known, and for reasons that should be obvious; for decades, its title track was an anthem for folks who were tired of being hassled for their stash.

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The late Peter Gutteridge is known as a founding member of The Clean and The Chills, but along with his band Snapper, he is best remembered for his only solo release, Pure. Originally issued on cassette in 1989 by the Xpressway label, it’s due to arrive on LP November 10 through Superior Viaduct. Featuring raw slices of lo-fi subterranean pop interspersed with methodically layered instrumentals, the set is a masterpiece of DIY that’s highly recommended to anybody who cherishes the sound of one human’s undiluted creativity captured by a 4-track.

Along with his brief time with The Clean and The Chills (very brief in the latter’s case), Peter Gutteridge was also a contributor to Clean offshoot The Great Unwashed (alongside Hamish and David Kilgour), The Puddle, and the Alpaca Brothers, but the band that brought him the biggest direct recognition was probably Snapper, a Flying Nun band that stood apart from what many think of when they think of the Flying Nun label.

Gutteridge’s higher profile in Snapper is due to his participation through the band’s whole run, which consisted of three singles, a self-tilted EP in 1988, Shotgun Blossom in ’90 and A.D.M. in ’96. “Buddy” from the EP is said to be Snapper’s best known tune, which makes sense as the video for the song made the rounds back in the day and was included on Atavistic Video’s In Love With These Times Vol. 1 Flying Nun VHS compilation.

Snapper’s sound could be described as a little like Jesus & Mary Chain, Spacemen 3, and early Stereolab in a big dogpile in Alan McGee’s backyard, and knowledge of the band’s general thrust will certainly be helpful for those hearing the unpolished DIY nature of Pure for the first time. But even as it offers markedly different versions of Snapper’s “Hang On” and “Cause of You,” Pure’s contents spread out farther than what Snapper was up to stylistically as the nature of the one-man and a 4-track operation launches the music from a contracted platform.

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Formed by Martin Phillipps in 1980, The Chills stand as one of New Zealand’s very greatest bands. Against the odds, Phillipps and his cohorts have persevered, still touring and releasing high-quality stuff, and for fans who’ve never grabbed vinyl copies of the band’s earliest releases, there is no better time to be alive than right now, as Fire Records has just issued expanded 2LP editions of the compilation Kaleidoscope World and debut LP Brave Words, with the latter remastered under the supervision of Phillipps. Delivering imaginatively conceived guitar pop with occasional currents of psychedelia, both albums are must-have acquisitions for collectors of the whole international ’80s post-punk shebang.

Many consider the two records The Chills recorded for Slash to be the sustained highpoint in their discography, and those discs, 1990’s Submarine Bells and ’92’s Soft Bomb, are so successful in their pop ambition that I’d be disinclined to raise an argument. It’s really impossible to deny those two LPs effectively capture Martin Phillipps’ songwriting at its most developed and with bold production to match.

But The Chills’ early work carries its own appeal, residing nearer to the garage, and in a few instances on Kaleidoscope World, punk rock (The Chills formed after the breakup of Phillipps’ punk band The Same). There’s the charged up belter “Bite” from the B-side of the their first single, while “Smile From a Dead Dead Face” was recorded live in ’85. These are exceptions however, as The Chills’ pop intentions were manifest from the start.

Originally released by Flying Nun and Creation in the UK in 1986, Kaleidoscope World started as a tidy 8-song affair collecting cuts from the legendary “Dunedin Double” compilation EP and their first three singles. This includes the majestic and decidedly psych-tinged “Pink Frost,” a song that manages to be soothing and unsettling at once. Easily one of the masterpieces in the band’s vast catalog, “Pink Frost” is nearly matched on the now 24-track 2LP set numerous times, including by much of ’85’s “The Lost EP,” which revealed songwriting growth, a clear rise in confidence, and a disdain for playing it safe.

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