Letting Go

Chris Parker wrote in his review on the Vortex web site of Letting Go, "Asaf Sirkis - as anyone who's heard his intense, subtle, musical drumming, either with Gilad Atzmon or fronting his own trios, will already know - is a class act, and this album, which features his working band (Tassos Spiliotopoulos on electric and acoustic guitars, Yaron Stavi on electric bass), is a treat from start to finish. Sirkis's music (he composed all seven tracks) manages to combine rapt, almost mesmeric contemplativeness with compulsive punch and drive, and over his dynamically varied drumming (which moves as required between brisk discursive 'jazz' style and tumblingly emphatic 'rock' - though his natural versatility almost renders these somewhat arbitrary categories redundant) Spiliotopoulos rings the changes between squeezed, Frisell-like textures and more straightforward, spiky fluency, while Stavi underpins the whole with his melodious but rock-solid bass. With Patrick Bettison, guesting on harmonica, bringing another colour to the band's palette, this is a typically powerful and absorbing set from a tight, mutually responsive band."