Empirical - Like Lambs (2022)

A brand new EP release from award-winning UK jazz quartet Empirical, featuring Nathaniel Facey (alto saxophone), Tom Farmer (double bass), Shaney Forbes (drums) and Lewis Wright (vibraphone).

Showcasing three unconventional long-form pieces by drummer Shaney Forbes, the EP’s title track Like Lambs poses an open question whether, as humans, we are truly capable of independent thought - or are we all like lambs to the slaughter?

With their characteristic interplay between composed and improvised parts, Empirical once again demonstrate their masterful ability to inhabit contrasting emotional states in their playing.

Emotions, and the search for original ways of expressing them, is indeed the driving force of these pieces, as Shaney Forbes explains: ‘I’ve become more and more interested in understanding what shapes our different emotional responses to the things we experience in life. In my music, I’m exploring how melodies, rhythms and group interplay play a part in creating a kind of landscape of feelings. And I hope it will provoke an emotional reaction in the listener.’