Slide Action's Josh Critina on their upcoming debut album

If you’re an avid follower of the NMC upcoming release schedule, you’re as surprised as us that they chose to take on a debut album from none other than a trombone quartet, much to our delight (and shock!). I think it speaks volumes of NMC’s forward-thinking approach and openness in their core values that they chose to work with us for RE:BUILD.

I should probably now tell you a little about what it’s all about, and how we got the idea to where it is now. Ultimately the album is a statement of intent from Slide Action. I’m probably generalising a little but as a medium, brass music has probably seen the least progression in terms of volume of new composition in comparison to others (strings/winds/percussion etc). There are of course notable exceptions, but perhaps not so much in the niche of 4 trombones. A good deal of repertoire for this format was written in Paris in the mid-20th century which could hardly be termed contemporary music in 2024 (though some groups still try…), or most commonly seen in concerts are arrangements of music written for other formats. As we developed as an ensemble, we found ourselves at a loss when programming… constantly looking for new sounds and ideas yet having to reuse the same pieces over and over again.

We explored more ‘innovative’ performance techniques including movement and entirely memorised programmes which was a great step forward and started to move us away from the traditional brass chamber music box… yet something was still missing. Gradually it dawned on us that ultimately what we wanted to be didn’t exist yet… it was time to change that!

That seed of an idea has grown not only into this album, but also our identity as a group. We set about commissioning music from renowned British composers: Emily Hall, Laura Jurd, Ryan Latimer, Alex Paxton and Joanna Ward. Part of our attraction to all of these composers was that while some had experience writing for brass, none were ‘type-cast’ as ‘brass composers’. Therefore, we felt they had unfiltered and untamed approaches to what was possible and what kind of sounds they could create with us.

As commissions arrived on our doorstep, we felt that when it came to performing or recording this new music, it wasn’t enough to simply programme it all as a compilation of new music. Rather we wanted to create a seamless journey for the listener, utilising ‘interludes’ to travel from one work to the next. The interludes are entirely composed or arranged by ourselves and all have a distinct identity that takes inspiration from what comes before and after.

Josh Critina, June 2024