Is it just me or does it feel like Mammal Hands’ excellent debut Animalia came out last week. Well in fact it was 2012! Jeez …. That makes the trio, led by brothers Nick Smart on piano and Jordan Smart on sax, veterans of the UK Jazz scene. Following the exit of their original drummer, Jesse Barrett in 2024, they took a moment to reflect before signing up an old friend – Rob Turner.
“We have known Rob since we all started out over a decade ago,” Nick Smart says. “We were all part of the UK jazz scene and we always connected over our shared musical instincts and interests. We had to rediscover the soul of our music and Rob has transformed it into something that continues our legacy as well as pushes it forward.” Rob joined the band for a forthcoming summer tour. “We spent time in the van on the road connecting over conversations about life and music and decided we should be working on a new record together once the shows were done,” Jordan says. “We took a musically open-ended approach, sending each other fragments of ideas that drew on the core tenets of the group: improvisation, intensity in the moment and ensuring the whole band moved together dynamically.”
Alongside a new drummer the band have a new home – ACT, the German label founded by the legendary Siggi Loch. ACT was once the home to the Esbjörn Svensson trio and in a sense Mammal Hands follow loosely in the continuum of that band’s enduring legacy. The music is varied but the newly refreshed rhythmic engine is at the heart of the project.
“Nick’s synth bass and Rob’s drumming really locked together, creating a new rhythmic foundation that runs through the whole record,” Jordan says. “The gloves were off and we felt free to push boundaries, which meant exploring more electronic and beat-influenced textures. It was like the ideas from all our different projects were coming full circle into Mammal Hands and forming part of a bigger cycle.”
This is our Chosen One.