Points Of Perception Jonathan Bratoeff | F-IRE (2006) By Chris May All About Jazz         London-based guitarist Jonathan Bratoeff's Between Lines (F-IRE, 2005) was a collection of edgy small group improvisations which delivered plenty and promised more. The recording placed Bratoeff's classically rooted but adventurous electric guitar—somewhere out of Jimmy Raney, heading in a more abstract direction—alongside the leaders of Acoustic Ladyland and Polar Bear, respectively: Pete Wareham (tenor saxophone) and Sebastian Rochford (drums), and Tom Mason (bass). The compelling recording focused on extended real-time soloing and group interplay. Points Of Perception paints on a larger canvas. The previous album's quartet stays in the lineup, this time augmented by three other outstanding stylists—Tom Arthurs (trumpet, flugelhorn), Nick Ramm (keyboards) and Julia Biel (vocals on two tracks). Listening to this recording, there are times when you can't help wishing Bratoeff had left it at that and used this bigger dream lineup to explore the ideas he mapped out on Between Lines in more depth. Most creative artists, however, have an aversion to standing still, and Bratoeff is as restless as they come. He rings the changes on this new album with the recruitment and foregrounding of hip-hop and drum 'n' bass studio-wiz Wampa, who also co-produces and replaces Rochford on some tracks. At the planning stage, the collaboration would have promised a genre-bending, thrills 'n' spills adventure, but in practice, it doesn't always get there. Wampa's contributions are of the moment, but they sound imposed upon, rather than bonded with, what's happening around him. He doesn't sound like a fully integrated member of the band, and relatively few of his interventions bust current hip hop and electronica paradigms. As you'd expect from a lineup of this quality, there is some fine music to be enjoyed here. Bratoeff rips off a handful of terrific solos, sometimes dreamy, other times agitated. Wareham and Arthurs are underemployed, but their duets on "Shrinking World" and "Idiom" are class A. Biel, who here sounds a bit like a warped version of Norah Jones, is divine on the ballad "Cloud Shapes Over A Purple Sky." There's also a good hidden track, which kicks off a couple of minutes after "Forgotten Dreams" and features Pharoah Sanders-ish tenor and agile acoustic bass. Jonathan Bratoeff is a serious talent, and his desire to push boundaries is to be applauded. He'll likely find his focus and make our hair curl http://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/entity.php?id=6152http://www.allaboutjazz.com/styles/jbratoeff2006.jpghttp://www.allaboutjazz.com/php/article.php?id=17908shapeimage_1_link_0shapeimage_1_link_1shapeimage_1_link_2

Points of Perception

Jazz wise

The Guardian, John Fordham

Birmingham Post, Peter Bacon

Jazz UK, John Fordham