Fergus Quill, styled in a tattered flamingo-pink suit, faces the crowd. Behind him a menagerie of musicians chirp, cackle, bleat, stomp, cry, sing, crash. The 16-piece horn section cloaks Fergus in cacophony as Hamish ‘Sonic’ Dixon’s siren wails over the band from his briefcase of mysterious gear. Bess Shooter on bari and Will Lakin on guitar cleave through the racket with just two notes, lighting a fire beneath the percussion section headed by Theo Goss and Josh Ketch at the drum sets. Fergus slowly raises his arms like a great bird, uniting the horn section to form a menacing melody. As the electricity in the room reaches breaking point, Fergus cuts off the band with a flurry to replace the tumult with a single sonorous chord. Thus closing the opening number: ‘Gutterball’. For Fergus and the band, this gig felt like a turning point in our live performance style. The show spirals through chaos and noise when suddenly a finger points to someone to take a solo, moving the music to settle on a quiet improvised theme of love. It’s hard to put down the feeling of a Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band show or to capture the spontaneity and risk in every moment of the set, but this LP represents a little slice of this particular moment in the band’s journey. Intro/Noise Before we’d even played a single note, the show had begun with Tom Waits’ ‘Big In Japan’ playing from the front-of-house. Fergus’ obsession with Waits, whose whole ‘thing’ is to play instruments that aren’t real instruments, had Jonathan Lodder open the set on the Big Metal Sheet drawing the spiritual lineage between Waits and the band. Gutterball ¿What? what, what, what, what, WHAT, what, (what, what, what, what) cue: Will Lakin scratching his way into the opening riff. Sophie Speed takes the alto solo before we find the closing groove. (Incidentally, I snuck off stage in the middle of this song to fix a keyboard issue, where I found the door staff plugging their ears with their fingers: a sign we were playing well). Sun Dream This tune shows off the unbelievable skill of the Imaginettes’ arranging, whose haunting harmonies float above the band. Fergus signalled to Aby Vulliamy (viola) and me to form a spontaneous duet, drawing the focus of the room right down. This prompted the band to lower their instruments and sing with us. The closing melody is interrupted by the iconic noise cadenza from Hamish who, wrestling with his box of toys, proved that there’s unknown magic in his jumble of gear. Far Too Long Fergus sits at a beat-up old upright while he and the Imaginettes, on their first gig together, call to Willie Nelson for inspiration. Though the feel has been ditched, Nelson’s influence can still be felt in the Imaginettes’ arrangement. Rebecca Herrington’s interpretation of the melody really digs into the longing of the tune, hitting the emotional landmarks perfectly. Nat Martin and Emma Johnson take the solos on their first-ever gig with us and you can hear the band’s jubilation in having them join us. Find out A Macbethian witches’ curse put down with wavering menace. It’s a tune with no solos, instead, climaxing with a huge chant from the whole band. We end abruptly, crashing from the full might of the ensemble, right down to the Imaginettes’ closing chord stack. The Dukes, the iconic Lancaster theatre we were invited to play in, gave us the space to dig into the drama of our music. Interplanetary Music/Fly a Kite Each gig of ours ends with joy and celebration of the people we’re lucky enough to make music with. There is a comfortable candidness to the playing on this track. Springing to life with a keys duo between George MacDonald and myself, which sends the tempo of this Sun Ra favourite of ours into the stratosphere. We hear solo offerings from Ben Powling and Dan Coulthurst and then a cosmos-bending sopranino solo from Alex Fisher. In the outro you can hear our endless jubilation as we march off with instruments in hand: the show starts before you come on and ends long after you leave the stage. The LP closes with a beautiful trumpet duo between Olivia Cuttill and Dan Coulthurst as Fergus holds a mic between them in the dressing room. Up until now, Ferg’s Imaginary Big Band’s live shows have been a spectacle only available to a select few venues in the North of England. Now, thanks to this LP, the message the band sends of total creative freedom can be spread throughout the cosmos and may inspire others to care a little less about failing and a little more about being oneself. The band were joined by 9-year-old Esme Morales Middleton who brought a trumpet case adorned with a FIBB sticker to the gig. This LP marks her recording debut. Thank you to all the staff at The Dukes and Lancaster Jazz Festival (including Lucy Woolley, Sophy Colbert, Fergus Walsh, Paula Williams, Ste Kerfoot, Rebecca Coughlan, Christine Dowbiggin, Laura Tattersall, and the LJF Volunteer Team) for inviting us to play, and to Dave Shooter whose paternal synergy with ‘The Bess’ made the gig even more personal to us.

Shimmering shronk, Cosmische Jazz, devilishly delirious big band action from everyone's fave performers. It's not imaginary, it's totally, utter real (and magnificent)! Recommended

By Matt