Siapiau - Pi (2023)

Siapiau is Welsh for 'Shapes', as the four members of the band create shapes in the air out of apparently nothing. The beauty of improvisation is that, at its best, it creates something perfectly fitted to the moment it was created in.

Siapiau is a new project from four improvisers who have been playing together in different formats for over twenty years. It's a band who aren't afraid of the experimental, but aren't afraid of a good groove either. It's improvised music that you could, at times, dance to. The line-up is Maggie Nicols on voice and keyboard, Fran Bass on electric bass, Richard Harrison on Drums and percussion and Phil Hargreaves on tenor/soprano sax and flute. Although Maggie is the main vocalist, we all sing. As does everybody, of course.

It started in September 2021, when after the annual Grand Gathering for improvising musicians at Melin Dolwion in South Wales, me, Fran and Maggie did an online Gathering. After a week of playing together we had a fine understanding, and I emailed Maggie to say that all we needed was to add a drummer, and there was a very good band. She agreed, and so it went...

But then, maybe it started in 2012, when me and Maggie began work on our duo album, 'Human'. Or maybe it started in 2006 with the band Mesmerise, with Maggie and Fran. Or maybe in 2001, when Richard played on my improvising big band/poetry project 'The Dislocation Sermons'. Or was it 1999 when I first met Maggie, working with the Frakture Big Band. Let's just say, that we have history, both together and separately. - Phil Hargreaves