Graham Costello's STRATA + Oscar Horner 15/06/23 @ Hyde Park Book Club

Scottish drummer and composer Graham Costello creates music that ranges in energy from delicate, meditative ambience to cinematic post-rock, harnessing the power of repetitive, entracing minimalist patterns. With his band STRATA, he has been nominated for Scottish Album of the Year, as well as eight Scottish Jazz Awards. STRATA’s energetic and organic groove music, alongside the hypnotising patterns and feel of minimalism has been described as “a meteorite on the scene and beyond.” (The National).

Costello and his peers are among the prominent new Scottish jazz artists bursting into the UK and international jazz scene, including corto.alto and Fergus McCreadie (Mercury Music Prize 2022 nominee). In May 2021, after his widely-praised debut album OBELISK in 2019, Costello released his follow-up album with STRATA, Second Lives, on Gearbox Records. It received much critical acclaim with UK jazz publication Jazzwise naming it one of the “Best Jazz Albums of 2021”. As 2023 rolls on, it sees Costello refining the sound of STRATA, with greater focus on collective repetition and cyclic grooves, and shifting the gravity of the new music more towards his voice on the drums.

Costello has already graced the stage at the Brudenell back in autumn 2022 as a member of corto.alto (alongside fellow STRATA musician Harry Weir). Here is the full line-up fo this STRATA show :

Harry Weir - tenor sax + bass clarinet
Fergus McCreadie - piano
Kevin Cahill - guitar
Gus Stirrat - electric bass
Graham Costello - drums + composition

Here's some quotes about STRATA and Costello's music by those in the know :

“Graham Costello’s Strata can justifiably be classed amongst the very best of the British jazz revolution.” - Louder Than War

“Glasgow’s jazz scene is becoming increasingly enviable with its penchant for dissolving the notion of genre. At its epicentre is drummer and composer Graham Costello.” - Downbeat Magazine

“Graham Costello sits at the forefront of this. His new album 'Second Lives' is a tour de force, an astonishing piece of work that obeys no rules aside from its own.” - Clash Magazine

“raw-noise excursions, infectious minimalist loops, lyrically meditative short interludes and chord-punching rock, thrilling drumming from the leader...and the word on the wires suggests their live show is even better.” - Jazzwise (Editor’s Choice)

“Costello’s music is a kind of utopia. It is very relaxed and hypnotic at the same time, but on the other hand it is also aggressive and agitated. Costello knows how to mediate between these extremes and how to find a balance.” - Eclipsed

“Dedicated, artful...fantastic” - Sunday Times

"Unrelenting waves of cinematic imagery accrue an intensity that never seems to level off, even after the last note has faded.” - Bandcamp

Support for this show is another electric fusion band also led by a drummer, Leeds local hero Oscar Horner. Since graduating from Leeds Conservatoire in 2021, Oscar has established himself as one of the top young drummers in the buzzing Leeds alt-jazz scene. His own quartet has supported Richard Spaven and Blue Lab Beats, played at Hyde Park Book Club/The Wardrobe/Hifi Club and from January to May 2022, Oscar led the house band at the legendary Sunday Joint sessions at Hifi Club. Each month, the trio backed a specially invited headline artist plus featured guests jamming with the band. Oscar's original music is heavy duty. Expect some gnarly left-field hip-hop beats and drum & bass vibes married to mad jazz improvisation. The perfect warm-up for Graham Costello's STRATA