TOUT - Fourth

Trestle Records is pleased to announce the new record from Tout. The aptly named Fourth.

Fourth ushers in a change of direction with core members Nick Downes and Jonathan Fryer composing the principle tracks as a duo in their London studio. Once these were established and recorded they both reached out with invitations to a host of collaborators, mostly friends, to complement and expand upon their foundational elements.

Fourth finds Tout delving deeper into the bands interest in contemporary classical, jazz and ambient music, whilst still retaining some of the aesthetic preoccupations of the previous records which largely explored folk and new age traditions. The result is a thoughtful and continuously exploratory textural world that is at once melodically satisfying whilst being structurally experimental. The works here are allowed time to unfold, evolve and offer frequent serendipitous moments between a range of players. The omnipresence of saxophone courtesy of Christian Berg and Martin Clarke gives the record an uncanny feeling in and out of time and contributes largely to the LP’s unclassifiable nature.

As well as an increased attention to a broader variety of acoustic instrumentation, Fourth sees Tout integrating and exploring ambient electronic and synthesised elements. Tout’s previous work has often been described by admirers as soundscapes, albeit ones that were bucolic in preoccupation and mise en scene. On Fourth the Americana vista’s are now gone. The folk-blues inflected strummed and picked guitars that were once the dominant instrument are now often augmented via FX to produce tonal drones and reverberating distant washes allowing generous room for the picked and bowed double bass, wandering percussion and reeds to take centre stage.

Fourth in many ways is a more ambitious and mature statement. At once challenging, albeit never confrontational, it is a record that has the patience and confidence to not seek immediate approval but instead allow for a shifting sense of feeling. There is a considered and knowing balance between improvised freedoms, expanded melody and ‘written’ composition. Tout, always atmospheric and contemplative, have allowed these new works to move across genres and in Nicholas Siddall's expertly tactful mix we are given somewhere to inhabit that is at once panoramically expansive and yet dynamic in detail and attention. The instrumentation feels rewardingly intimate and close, present and human. It’s beautifully recorded. We hear fingers on strings, breathe across reeds and a beautifully delicate, sparing use of any post production.

Jonny McKemey, Tout’s percussionist returns to provide the spacious and considered drumming, bowed cymbals and sensitivity he brings to each album. Fourth features saxophone on several tracks courtesy of the Berlin based composer and label owner Martin Clarke and the Paris based composer Christian Berg. Peter Bennie (Speakers Corner Quartet & Coma World), a long time collaborator of the band returns on double bass. Strings are provided by composer Donna Mckevitt (The Mountain within Me) on viola and cello from composer Christopher Bangs. Ross Downes (Trestle Records, Keeley Forsyth) features on synthesisers & piano and lastly Nicholas Siddall (EQLS) on electric bass who also mixed and mastered the record.

Fourth’s artwork is by, long standing Trestle Records collaborator, fine artist Franke Dannert (Cologne, Germany) and design is from Trestle’s Ross Downes.