" data-original-title="" title="">Sam Newbould is a British-born alto saxophonist and composer who has since 2016 been based in Amsterdam, where he leads the Sam Newbould Quintet. The group debuted on record with the self-produced Blencathra in 2019. Bogus Notus is the follow-up.

The album is a substantial piece of work, a collection of eight originals which, says Newbould, takes the listener on a journey through the "mysterious corners of the northern English countryside" where he grew up. As the cover art suggests, this is a landscape dotted with ruins of the dark, satanic mills which broke out like open sores during Britain's nineteenth-century industrial revolution. It has to be said, however, that the English north only leaps out of Bogus Notus on one track, "Song For Annie." Featuring vocalist Beth Aggett, the tune sounds like a traditional northern folk song. Elsewhere, we could equally well be on a journey through the American rust belt for all the musical clues have to tell us.* But Newbould's precise geo-inspirational locus does not matter. It is the realisation that counts, and the dark and often brooding atmospheres conjured by the album cast their own weighty spell. Indeed, it is as a composer and arranger, rather than as a saxophonist, that Newbould makes the biggest impression. That said, his alto playing possesses a pleasingly tart lyricism, and his quintet, which is expanded to a septet on some tracks, is an empathic lineup. But they, too, are present primarily to be of service to the material.

Alongside English folk music, Newbould cites Radiohead,