“a major talent”
From San Francisco Jazz’s ‘Rising Women Instrumentalists’ list
“a rich mix of cinematic landscape evocation, funky guitar grooves, dreamy reveries spun off minimalist patterns and fluently uncliched improv”
4 STARS & Album of the Month for ‘A View with a Room’ from John Fordham, The Guardian
“With her astringent tone and flexible take on harmony she delivers stimulating explorations.”
4 STARS for ‘A View with a Room’ from Barry Witherden, BBC Music Magazine
“a distinctly fresh voice that speaks with a magical turn of phrase…There will [or most certainly ought to be] loud talk about Miss Clowes for another important reason – principally the exquisite manner in which she plays with colour.”
JazzdaGama
“a mysterious yet utterly gratifying exercise in collective harmonic interplay, post-bop lyricism, and modal inquiry balanced by elegant, exploratory, and intimate improvisation”
4 STARS for ‘A View with a Room’ from Thom Jurek, AllMusic
“the continued development of the My Iris quartet is every bit as impressive as the maturity of Clowes’ compositions… Clowes’ tunes sparkle and fizz with unusual phrasings and switches in tempo and a keen sense of creating small melodies that glitter like gems in the musical settings.”
Chris Baber, Jazzviews
“dizzying heights of lyricism and emotional expression… The level of musicianship and shared intent, leads to a telepathic like interplay within the quartet… Trish Clowes has thus delivered an exceptional album”
Gareth Allen, At The Barrier
“This is music of communication and community… It’s all captured in the magical opening title track.”
4 STARS & Editor’s Choice for ‘A View with a Room’ from Andy Robson, Jazzwise
“an incredible band”
Jamie Cullum, BBC Radio 2
“A triumph for Clowes and for My Iris”
Live review of MY IRIS at Wigmore Hall, from Andy Robson, Jazzwise
“a beguilingly inventive mix of shadow and luminosity… lyrical warmth tempered by certain shady spookiness”
4 STARS for ‘A View with a Room’ from Jim Gilchrist, The Scotsman
“a triumphant homecoming gig for saxophonist and composer Trish Clowes… the rapport between the group members is exceptional. Always an ambitious and inquisitive writer Clowes’ compositions for the new album represent her most cohesive collection of pieces to date and we were privileged to hear all of them tonight”
4.5 STARS, live MY IRIS review, by Ian Mann
“The entire session was a joy – something for everyone… Each individual musician was marvellous… The interplay between all 4 was infectious”
Steve Horowitz, BebopSpokenHere, live review of MY IRIS
“musical intelligence allied to a prodigious technical ability… It was a fascinating evening… There really was something for everybody.”
Andrew Petch, The Shropshire Star, live review of Trish Clowes & Ross Stanley at Shropshire Music Trust
“A high intensity, mercurial workout provides further evidence that Clowes is an improviser to be reckoned with”
Downbeat Magazine
“Clowes demonstrates a deep understanding of Cutler’s fascinating musical language throughout”
BBC Music Magazine (Claire Jackson), from a 4 STAR review of Joe Cutler’s ‘Hawaii Hawaii Hawaii’ (2020)
“British saxophonist Trish Clowes, meanwhile, deftly unites old and new, building melodic filigree over Vivaldi’s sure harmonic foundations.”
Apple Music write-up for Clowes’s ‘Sleep 1’ (Vivaldi adaptation) on Orchestra of the Swan’s album ‘Timelapse’ (2021)
“Sheer perfection!”
4.5* for MY IRIS live at the Boileroom for Guildford Jazz (livestream), from Trevor Bannister for JazzMann, Jan 2021
“…a beguiling Clowes solo that Lester Young or Ben Webster would have been proud of, while Montague responds with an achingly pretty, bluesy solo…Maddren makes judicious use of his bass drum, and in general, drives the quartet with bustling intensity and no little nuance… Stanley and Clowes engaging in thrilling call-and-response before following their respective muses… then intimate drum and guitar duet…Strong compositions brilliantly interpreted”
4 stars for MY IRIS Live! in All About Jazz from Ian Patterson
“Trish Clowes doesn’t just play the saxophone, she reinvents it.”
Rochester City Newspaper
“a band’s band … high speed melodic chases, punchy avant garde jams, spacey organic textures and even Weather-Report-inspired rock fusion… and Clowes, singing on the beautifully meandering epic ‘Free to Fall’.”
New York State Music
“It is, perhaps, impossible to artists to do other than provide commentary and support (which will continue to be vital) to a confused, bemused and worried audience. So, the closing track ‘Free to fall’, with Clowes’ gentle, fragile singing alternating with rampant improvisation of the band, creates (for me, at least) a manifesto for the world that we might hope to find on the other side.”
Chris Baber of JazzViews for MY IRIS Live!
“Modern jazz put its best foot forward with Trish Clowes’ My Iris… This is a band going places.”
Ian Patterson, All About Jazz, review of Galway Jazz Festival appearance
“There is a balance between the players and a stylistic openness in the material, which shifts stealthily between a grounded, melodic accessability and airy abstraction.”
Kevin le Gendre, Jazzwise, 4* for Ninety Degrees Gravity
“Listen, and then listen again, if only to remind yourself that this beautiful other worlds really does exist.”
Fiona Talkington on Ninety Degrees Gravity
“we are once again awed by a musician whose composition and improvisation bristles with uncommon genius and can hardly wait for more…”
Raul da Gama, JazzdaGama
“a definite contender for album of the year. Each track is so beautifully structured and so well played, that the whole set amply repays many repeated listens”
Chris Baber, JazzViews, on Ninety Degrees Gravity
“exhilarating and darkly funky”
John Fordham, the Guardian, 4*
“Everything Clowes does has an invigorating purposefulness”
Ivan Hewett, the Telegraph, 4* for MY IRIS Album Launch
“musical wizardry”
Fiona Ord-Shrimpton, All About Jazz, 4.5* for MY IRIS
“…veering between velvet and violence. Clowes has complete mastery of the tenor… Her lightning ability to transfer complex thought to action was equalled by the other virtuoso players”
Chris Kilby, bebopspokenhere blog, MY IRIS live on tour 2019
“Strong on both group interplay and compositional skill this is one of the most outstanding UK jazz albums to be released this year.”
Stephen Graham, Marlbank, on Ninety Degrees Gravity
“Trish Clowes remains one of the most inquisitive musicians in British jazz… She and her band won many new fans tonight thanks to the quality of their brief performance and the release of her new album will be awaited with much interest.”
– Ian Mann, the Jazzman, MY IRIS at the Barbican/EFG London Jazz Festival November 2018
“The upward trajectory of Trish Clowes’ mastery, both as tenor saxophonist and composer, has been a privilege to follow… it is this current quartet, My Iris, which is now shedding even greater light on her creativity… Clowes is amongst a select group of tenorists who endlessly explore the tonal and multiphonic reaches of their instrument… Like Clowes, Montague’s improvisational prowess is clearly summoned from some other place… The sonic diversity available in this quartet makes it particularly fresh and interesting, and suggests there is much yet to come.”
– Adrian Pallant, LondonJazzNews, MY IRIS live at Manchester Jazz Festival 2018
“Clowes lent caressing vocals to another new composition, “Free to Fall,” which provided a set highlight. The lulling poetry of the intro, with Clowes’ song cushioned by undulating organ waves, gave way sharply to robust riffing and passionate trading between saxophone and piano. Against Maddren’s ever-livelier rhythms, Montague and Clowes employed pedal effects to forge a shared soundscape as ethereal as it was stirring. The audience rose to its feet to demand an encore and the quartet duly obliged with “Arise,” another new number. Clowes, on tenor, carved a gently mazy, arresting course that steered the quartet from the impressionistic, stuttering opening—complete with brief circus motif—to balladry of the tenderest kind, Clowes’ aching tenor soaring lightly over rumbling piano—a meeting of poetry and rhythmic drive that was the benchmark of the concert as a whole. “
– Ian Patterson, All About Jazz, MY IRIS live on tour in Ireland 2018
“Clowes and her skilful quartet reworked the intricate music from last year’s My Iris album, but also unveiled darkly funky new work that bears an increasingly punchy resemblance to the music of the jazz-fusion band Weather Report.”
– John Fordham, the Guardian, 4* for MY IRIS live on tour 2018
“Trish Clowes quartet My Iris continues to surprise… They are a superb live act”
– Chris Baber, Jazz Views
“The jazz of the future… My Iris is the title of the new album, in which Trish Clowes narrates her big and small stories and subtly blends them with modern jazz that is miles away from the sometimes tormenting free-jazz. The time in the townhouse flies by, so moved one is listening to this quartet”
– Michael Peter Bluhm, Augsburger Allgemeine, MY IRIS live in Germany
“An on-the-top concert… What a finesse in the arrangements… rhythmically interlocked parallel worlds… With great pleasure, they threw themselves into the highly concentrated layered pieces, dropped into melancholy streams without a net, juggled with musical genres courageously, but always with the necessary humility. A very strong concert of the series – maybe on the top.” (Google translation)
– Udo Eberl, Südwest Presse, MY IRIS live in Germany
“Everything Clowes does has an invigorating purposefulness… her clever way with small things can open a big space, pregnant with possibility. One day she will surely inhabit it.”
– Ivan Hewett, the Telegraph, 4* for MY IRIS Album Launch
“Whatever planet Trish Clowes and her band were on when they recorded this, I want to be there! Innovation, wit, wisdom, elegance – My Iris is already a contender for Album of 2017”
– Fiona Talkington, BBC Radio 3
“Clowes is in turns warm-hearted, sprightly, introspective, graceful and pithy… I imagine that Clowes has an audacious sense of humour as exhibited in some of the titles that she gives her compositions… ‘Blue Calm’ is a playful sounding theme with the leader on tenor sax, negotiating the serpentine melody. What follows thereafter is pure musical perfection…All eight tracks on the album are masterpieces”
– Alan Musson, UK Vibe, 5/5 for MY IRIS
“It is every instrumentalist’s dream to make his or her instrument sound like the human voice. Some, if not all succeed rather well and a few – very few – not only flourish but are able to make the instrument sing. The young British saxophonist Trish Clowes is certainly one of them… There are stylish solo contributions throughout My Iris and its unveiling will certainly enhance her reputation as one of the most talented saxophonists in recent times… My Iris is a tour de force for Trish Clowes whose music is subtly modulated as she spins wonderfully fluid, mellifluous textures, tenderly drawing from her reeds a gem-like brightness reminiscent of burnished gold.”
– Raul da Gama, JazzdaGamma
“There’s an energy and a focus about this, Clowes fourth album for UK indie Basho records, that suggests a creative breakthrough… mention must be made of “Blue Calm”‘s showcase for Clowes’ tenor, deftly evoking sunlight on still water through the way that the piano and guitar ripple beneath the saxophone… “One Hour” is of the highest standard—the opening eerie keyboard being gradually usurped by the way the guitar and piano pull the piece into the light, peaking with a breezy solo from Clowes… Clowes and her band have taken a notable step forward and this album is highly recommended to anyone with an interest in literate, forward looking modern jazz.”
– Phil Barnes, All About Jazz, 4.5* for MY IRIS
“With just four players, the variety of tone colour is quite remarkable, and the playing of Clowes on tenor and soprano saxophones, Ross Stanley (piano and organ) Chris Montague (guitar) and James Maddren (drums) is impeccable.”
– Dave Gelly, The Observer, 4* for MY IRIS
“With an agile, melodic imagination and an economy of ideas learned from Wayne Shorter, Clowes is a fluent improviser, and this set of original tunes was clearly intended to liberate rather than dictate”
– Cormac Larkin, The Irish Times, 4* for MY IRIS
“the Englishwoman’s quirky songwriter’s ear, subtly sleepy tenor sax sound and bright intensity on soprano are anything but cerebral”
– John Fordham, The Guardian, 4* for MY IRIS
“To achieve that range of sounds with a jazz quartet requires rare skill. How much other contemporary music has such adventurous or eclectic intellectual horizons?”
– Matthew Wright, The Arts Desk, 4* for MY IRIS
“What’s going on in this band equates to some kind of magic…with the release of My Iris, an album with such a compression of articulated vision, I can’t believe she isn’t going to be recognised as a critical European player and composer. Trish Clowes’ soprano and tenor saxophones are already TC (Top Cat)… This is a music of substance… Trish Clowes has thrown down a challenge to herself with this album. The bar is set, there is no way back from this height, neither can she stop still. There will have to be something else to come. My Iris buys her some time.”
– Steve Day, SandyBrownJazz blog
“consistently fascinating”
– Rob Adams, Herald Scotland
“Clowes has a magisterial tone that immediately pulls attention to her when she plays, and a fascinating approach to phrasing that creates richly nuanced textures in each piece. The whole set is hugely accomplished, highly enjoyable and a major contribution to the contemporary UK jazz scene… I can imagine each track on this set becoming a Standard for other groups in years to come. This is certainly going to feature of critics choices of album of the year.”
– Chris Baber, jazzviews.net
“Amazing tribute to Wayne Shorter… Pocket Compass can be interpreted as a sign post to the highly individual music of a newcomer… A wonderful introduction, and most warmly recommended.”
– 5 STAR review for Pocket Compass from Jürg Sommer at Schweiz am Sonntag (Switzerland)
“improv saxist and composer on a creative roll… Clowes’ intuitive one-twos with pianist Gwilym Simcock so closely echo Shorter and the Herbie Hancock of old that it’s almost uncanny”
– 4 STAR review for Pocket Compass from John Fordham at the Guardian
“Emulsion founder Trish Clowes‘ ‘Apple Boy’ appeared at first to be quite simple, but turned out to be extravagantly rich—opulent even—attaining some very impressive tutti textures that were highly individualistic, only held in check by the music’s underlying harmony. The quality of its lyricism was only exceeded by its ravishing beauty.”
– review from 5:4 blog, Emulsion Sinfonietta at Cheltenham Music Festival, July 2015
“In Balloon, with the orchestra, her timbre is in the air again, her soprano moving with a new combustion and energy matched by Montague’s throbbing chorus. This is definitely a balloon with an engine. Her dedication to Shorter is Wayne’s Waltz, where, back on soprano she remembers 60 years of his recording artistry in a dance of love and homage. She is his inheritor a continent and an ocean away, and a young woman brimming with the surprise and ever-inventive singularity of her magic.”
– Article for the Morning Star by Chris Searle
“Clowes’ The Fox, the Parakeet and the Chestnut – despite its child’s-tale title – bubbled with savvy surprises, from multiphonic effects blown into the piano’s soundbox, to breathy tenor-sax sounds against purring brass, and a strutting cello theme underpinning whimsically gliding sax ruminations. If those tentative 1920s genre-benders of symphonic jazz had witnessed the flexibility and relaxation shared by the jazz and orchestral players in this conversational setting, they wouldn’t have believed it.”
– 4 STAR review from John Fordham at the Guardian for 2014 EFG London Jazz Festival concert, Clowes’ BBC Radio 3 Commission
“Her themes and harmonies are angular and quirky, and she shares Thelonius Monk’s talent for building an overall sense of inevitability out of surprising details. As an improviser she achieves a similar melding of the unexpected and the inexorable”
– 4 STAR review for Pocket Compass from Barry Witherden at BBC Music Magazine
“Clowes’ third album condenses and refines her exquisite control of instrumental colour”
– 4 STARS for Pocket Compass from Matthew Wright at the Arts Desk
“this is very stylish and heartfelt new music from a rising young sax star.”
– 4 STARS for Pocket Compass from Selwyn Harris at Jazzwise
“beyond the obvious virtuosity the record contains some of the most absorbing original music in the jazz-classical idiom released this year… A fine achievement, one to add to any self-respecting list of jazz albums of the year.”
– 4 STARS/RECOMMENDED for Pocket Compass from Stephen Graham, marlbank
“Trish Clowes is now standing out from the crowd and proving once and for all that she is one of the most original saxophonists and composers on the UK scene, and ready to take her place on the international stage… The musicianship on ‘Pfeiffer and the Whales’ is staggering, and second only to the needs of the composition; this is also true of her soprano playing on the quirky and ambiguous ‘Wayne’s Waltz’… undoubtedly a strong contender for Album of the Year”
– review from Nick Lea at Jazz Views for Pocket Compass
“this album carries the spine-tingling realisation that Trish Clowes is constantly knocking at the door of innovation, needing to pass through to discover further, uncharted avenues. It’s that inquiring edge, along with an innate musicality, that defines this collection of intelligently-crafted, collaborative compositions”
– review from Adrian Pallant for Pocket Compass
“Trish Clowes is one of the most agile and original jugglers of improv and adventurous composition to have appeared in the UK in recent times”
– John Fordham, the Guardian
“Trish Clowes is a fiercely talented jazz saxophonist”
– Ivan Hewett, the Telegraph
“This is British Jazz at its best… I suggest you go and see her now before it’s difficult to get in the room, I assure you she is a great great talent.”
– Jamie Cullum
5* for EMULSION III Festival, “Theatrical use of space exalts jazz-classical festival to greatness”
-Matthew Wright, the Arts Desk
“The cathedral was also my favoured venue for three superb concerts on Sunday [at Brecon Jazz Festival 2014]. The quintet of the young Trish Clowes with Gwilym Simcock featured on piano impressed equally for the leader’s adventurous originals and her fluent free-improv soloing.”
-Bob Weir, Jazz Journal
“The set of the quintet constantly changed, with surprising twists and memorable moments. There were elegant and sensitive songs, subdued and delicate one moment and fiery and ecstatic the next. It was originality and fine improvisation that made this one of the most interesting performances of the [Brecon Jazz] festival.”
-Anthony Weightman, AAA Music
“[Gershwin’s Lullaby] was a highlight of the night, thanks to saxophonist Trish Clowes… Her own style recalled the even earlier tones of Lester Young, which made it a fascinating follow-on from her own soprano excursion in tribute to her hero Wayne Shorter, Wayne’s Waltz, its triple time a challenge to anyone wishing to trip the light fantastic. Her main orchestral composition, Sketch, having its live premiere, seemed well-named and her description of its organic sculptural creation suggested that was intended.”
– Keith Bruce, Herald Scotland
“Trish Clowes’ music has its share of poetry, mystery, mystical, symbolist beauty… full of surprises, maturity, original structures and sensitivity…In several years, you’ll still listen to this album.”
– Jean-Claude Vantroyen, Mad le Soir (google translation)
“impressive mix of jazz and contemporary classical via fluent improv, melodic lines and lush harmonies. She’s a complex and compelling soloist who’s well worth checking out”
-Time Out
“Clowes’ melodies are memorable: especially the sleepy Bill Frisell-like drift of ‘Atlas’, the elegantly arranged chamber jazz piece ‘Animator’ that sounds as if it could have come off Brad Mehldau’s 2009 Highway Rider CD, and the baroque-like ‘Seven’… It has some old magic about it, Clowes’ sweet feathery tenor tone recalling that of Stan Getz in the higher register and the influence of Lester Young in the lower range. It’s a highly engaging recording.”
– Selwyn Harris, Jazzwise
“… Clowes that showcases a tenor voice persuasive and sour, a sinuous phrasing and borderline stretched out in time, a bit ‘like Lee Konitz and Stan Getz had gathered on the same instrument… The three movements of “Iris Nonet” – suite dedicated to his grandmother, he writes in the liner notes Clowes – are a vivid, structured, intense, at times moving testimony of this musical vision… Crystalline talent to watch here.”
– Vincenzo Roggero, All About Jazz – Italy
“In September 2012, tenor saxophonist Trish Clowes became a BBC Radio 3 New Generation Artist, the first female jazz artist to be recognised by the scheme. Right on cue, Basho Records released her second album, And in the Night-time She Is There, as a timely reminder of the talents that led to her being selected for such recognition.”
– John Eales, BBC Music
“Powerful, lyrical and with a sound-world that ranges from the austere to the ecstatic”
– Peter Quinn, the Arts Desk
“…their exquisitely nuanced performance of Clowes’ new compositions had the depth of interaction and oozed skill and sensitivity. Clowes’ compositions have an immediately recognisable inquisitive, restless quality, their questing melodies flecked with folk and classical influences, yet with improvisational space to show off the finest jazz technique. It was contemporary playing at its most inspiring.”
– Matthew Wright, LondonJazzNews
“Clowes has a way of being expressive without cuffing the listener in the ears. This leads to some dramatic moments with a subdued tone… a contrast that is quite enchanting.”
– Bird is the Worm
“A fat but delicate tenor sound; phrases that seem to slide over the contours of the artfully constructed harmonies and float across crisps rhythms without losing contact; an almost diffident delivery at times, with angular lines hinting at a very contemporary bop, thrown out across the full range of the tenor’s sound whisperingly quiet at times”
– Mike Collins, jazzyblogman
“Clowes’ abilities as a composer and player display a maturity and eloquence so relatively early on in her career.”
– John Toolan, jazzgoestoleeds blog
“Given time and repeated listening, this album unfolds and will manifest itself as the delicate, intricate work of beauty that it is. You’ll find yourself whistling the melodies you first thought too quirky to hold onto. Buy this album not only to support truly British Jazz, but also as an ointment for your soul!”
– JJ Wheeler, the jazzbreakfast
“BBC New Generation Artist’ Clowes is a consummate, impassioned composer and performer whose relentless, creative tenor soloing is a joy.”
– Adrian Pallant, LondonJazzNews
