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Related Reviews

Music Maker
"Like the genie in the lamp, this [album] releases the spirit of Dolphy. Listen to Empirical and make three wishes."
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Audiophile Audition
4 Stars
"an ambitious and imaginative outpouring that is a compelling, creative and excellently constructed"
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California Chronicle
2009's Best Jazz Albums: "This album is tight, imaginative and heartfelt"
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ThisIsBooksMusic.com
"Explosive? This is the future of jazz now."
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Jazz Times
"Out ‘n' In is driven by a desire to further avant garde art and to keep it relatable to contemporary audiences."
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Buffalo News
3½ Stars
"picks up in places where Dolphy left off."
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Northern Echo
"a wonderful combination of control and looseness"
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Echoes
3 Stars
"Empirical have managed to tackle one of the most advanced minds in the jazz canon and grow organically from it is emphatic testimony to a daring and maturity that can only bode well for the future."
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All About Jazz
"a momentous album, great in itself and promising even greater things to come."
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The Observer
"Empirical catch the distinctive flavour of [Dolphy's] work beautifully"
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Jazz Mann
4 Stars
"an excelllent record...there is clearly much more to come from these excellent musicians"
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Vortex Jazz
"overall, this is an intense, poised but always approachable album. Recommended"
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Jazz Journal
"Empirical come out strongly, with some genuinely thoughtful and innovative charts and comme il faut playing"
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Coventry Telegraph
"Their style remains distinctive, but they have the courage to make a complete shift of emphasis in terms of their compositional direction. They succeed with a boundless finesse."
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Independent on Sunday
"an impressively out-there sound"
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The Times
3 Stars
"gorgeous"
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Financial Times
3 Stars
"a fresh faced knockout"
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Evening Standard
4 Stars
"intelligent, spacey music with absorbing solos"
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The Guardian
4 Stars
"full of sparky variety...excellent"
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BBC Music Magazine
5 Stars
"expertly sequenced with a fine sensibility for the music...as close to taking the band home as it gets"
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Jazz Breakfast
"one of the most skilled bands in the country."
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The Scotsman
4 Stars
"a spirited tribute to Eric Dolphy...[Empirical] rise to the challenge in engaged and inventive fashionm"
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Jazzwise
4 Stars
"graceful...dramatic and subtle...a daring maturity that can only bode well for the future"
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City Life
4 Stars
"The group's own identity remains elusive on what sounds like a great, lost album by Eric Dolphy. "
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Birmingham Post
"Hear how music can be rooted in the tradition of 45 years ago and still sound like the sound of tomorrow."
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Daily Telegraph
3 Stars
"the coolest of Britian's young jazz bands"
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Mojo
4 Stars
[Empirical] continue to astonish with their spirit and skill"
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Out 'n' In in Record Collector


17 September 2009
Record Collector
Charles Waring
4 Stars

Cast in a different mould altogether is Out 'n' In, the second album by the UK-based quartet EMPIRICAL, who, back in 2007, had many jazz critics salivating over their eponymous debut for Courtney Pine's Destin-E label. Following a change of label, the group have elected to pay homage to the legendary avant-garde reed player Eric Dolphy. Though the CD features imaginative renderings of two classic Dolphy numbers, what's really striking are the nine original tunes - featuring some inventive alto sax by Nathaniel Facey - that sonically recreate the eerie beauty of Dolphy's seminal Blue Note LP, Out To Lunch.
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