Symphonie Pacifique is the new album by UK jazz pianist, Greg Foat, who has become a versatile mainstay in UK jazz through an acclaimed series of albums on Jazzman and Athens Of The North, moving from soul-jazz workouts to library music to cinematic, haunting compositions and pastoral acid folk. Symphonie Pacifique goes expansive and widescreen, building a lush soundscape using choral textures, harp and tubular bells.
Symphonie Pacifique is a warm, varied and declarative record that could catch many a jazz sceptic unawares. Each track generously feeds the next, with Foats skilful propensity for genre-bending imbuing his oscillations with grit, drama and verve; sometimes it beguiles with the prettiness of its tessellations, at others it veers close to superior ambient music with extra percussive bounce and heft.