Black Carrot, For a Change

The king of obscure instruments Olly Betts, reveals the near-miss themes that the Carrot don’t quite have along with the rest of all that jazz…

The alternative art rockers are somewhat like a refresher course, whimsically feeding anyone who dares gamble a taste on the Carrot. Using a variety of unheard instruments including fender rhodes, a basshum recorder and a rhino sax- Black Carrot have become part of the jazz fusion genre, paying homage to Impulse! Records legends like John Coltrane and Pharoah Sanders. They’re different, to say the least.

Different yes, but not so obscure that the only appeal is a pretentious cry for help, heard only by the upper class art school elite above extended silences in some jazz impromptu playing on their European sound system, as they saunter in their Italian loafers.

Not quite a blow-off-your-head-if-you-stand-to-near-to-the-speakers band, it is in fact the sound, or the mood that is most prominent about the Carrot. Stewart Brackley’s vocals are a gibbering warble woven through an avant-garde tapestry- never quite coherent, yet always an impression. And in terms of theme, it’s fair to summate that preconceived notions are never really an important constituent for the band. "They’re not particularly about anything, there’s a bit of a war theme going on. We’ve got a single out in October, and that’s got a bit of a theme about it. But no, they’re not really about anything in particular" Olly Betts, Carrot mastermind assures me.

The first misconception about Black Carrot, is that they have Eastern European roots. Olly justly announces, "People were saying "you sound like Faust or Neu! or like all these German things of which I’ve never owned a record, before we started doing it".

In actual fact they’re signed to Coventry-based label Tin Angel Records, and have gained a mostly bohemian following within the city and across Midlands; despite dwelling mostly in home town Market Harborough. The UK may have been the feeding ground for Black Carrot- and a tour around the country is not unlikely- but they have previously stepped outside of the UK to measure the acceptance in Eastern Europe. Two trips to Poland can be sighted on their résumé- if not purely to see how a jazz fusion band might go down in the country famed for ‘disco polo’.

"We’ve got a mate over there, who organised this little thing- a tour sounds a bit grand- we just played down his local. It sounds a lot grander than it was… It was fun. The first night we played we had cleared the place, bar from one, which is quite an achievement", states Olly unassumingly. He continues on to say "The second time we toured there, we took our storyteller with us, and we even more bad press".

The fact is that the band don’t really care if you like them of not. They're respectfully of a more mature set these days, never needing to actively seek approval. They are instead applying themselves to an experiment, of a kind. Now after working away for round about 10 years, the general temperament can be summarised by; "We’re just going to keep doing what we’re doing. No one’s going to get us anyway, so it doesn’t really matter!"

Rousing words from the Carrot’s musical ‘let’s pick it up and see what happens’ frontrunner, who reveals no ostentatious background in sight when it comes to instrumental competence. "I’ve played woodwinds forever really, and I think keys is just something I fell in to. We haven’t been trained, Stew knows what he’s doing musically, but the rest of us- we don’t- we just sort of find it and play it". He continues to disclose that "We started off trying to be a bit of a, not a jazz band, but an out-there Sun Ra sort of jazz thing. And it gelled into what we’re doing now".

So when there is a theme? Well so far they have composed a soundtrack to works on Edgar Allan Poe, and Franz Kafka amidst others, which they recorded with temporal bard Nigel Parkin. But that’s old news, and presently fans can look forward to a new record on the horizon... "They’ll be a new album next year, possibly" Olly just barely prophesises. "Hopefully be a double one- out in the Tin Angel, at some point. We’re sort of just thinking about it at the moment".

So if you maybe, sort of, might quite like to give Black Carrot a listen, then previous albums are available at the Tin Angel or on the band’s website.