Speakers Corner Quartet

Jazz quartet from London, England.

Speakers Corner Quartet started as the house band at the infamous hip-hop/spoken-word open-mic night Speakers’ Corner in Brixton, London. In the beginning the prerequisite of the quartet was to deliver beats to emcees/lyricists at the all-night open-mic sessions. Imperceptibly the quartet started writing their autochthonous compositions. It was instantaneously envisaged that the quartet had an extended aptitude that transcended backing lyricists. The anomalous line-up (cello, flute, contrabass and drums) required an aberrant approach to composition – using single lines en masse to create chord structures rather than utilizing a committed harmony instrument. Influences include Zakir Hussain, Olivier Messiaen, Sun Ra, MF Doom to name but a few; the unique sound of the Speakers Corner Quartet is almost impossible to pigeon-hole. An amalgam of Asian-classical-jazz-hip-hop, this is true mulatto music. For this reason, the Speakers Corner Quartet are part of a new movement of musicians who call their music 12tone. (source: http://lanquidityrecords.com/vinyls/speakers-corner-quartet-further-back-than-the-beginning-12-ep-2/ )