Fourtet : Rounds : Unspoken (track 6)


It's very late. Practically everyone's staggered off home. The pissed-off drummer starts to thrash out a desultory rock 'n' roll riff. In the smoky cone of light thrown beneath the one green-shaded lamp, the slumped pianist begins picking out an extended phrase - it's mournful, elegiac, and about to turn obsessive, as he repeats it, over and over, riding the choppy crests of that marginally inappropriate rhythm. It's a bit Keith Jarrett, a bit Edmund Hopper, a bit amateurish, a bit brilliant. The drummer, there in the shadowy corner - sister? lover? wife? - some story. We're all past caring. A naff old wind-chime tinkles in the breeze somewhere. What breeze? It goes on just a bit too long. Inside the pianist's head: clouds, a name, something overheard, the smell of lilac - a long time ago - what was it - on the tip of - gone. Back to here. The wordless now. The chime, the drum-riff, the piano. Really late. Time to go.