Hilary Geddes Quartet: Redleaf
Earshift Music

While it might be tempting to liken Redleaf to an ECM recording due to its strong atmospheric quality, doing so would not only do a disservice to the album, it would undervalue the special identity Sydney-based guitarist Hilary Geddes forges with her quartet on the release. Lazily comparing her sound to Bill Frisell's does much the same in underappreciating the singularity of Geddes' own style. Yes, both are players whose sound is deeply marked by texture and tone, but as the new collection shows she's clearly developed her own persona as a guitarist.

Geddes' follow-up to 2021's Parkside, her quartet's debut, is an immensely satisfying affair for a host of reasons. Formed in 2019, the quartet augments the leader with pianist Matthew Harris, double bassist Max Alduca, and drummer Alexander Inman-Hislop, all three telepathically attuned to Geddes' sensibility. The material she wrote for Redleaf grew out of the lockdown and post-pandemic era and some of that time's feeling of stasis emerges in the music's style. She describes it as possessing a “slow brew quality,” an accurate encapsulation of its intimate, inward-probing character. Consistent with that, it's often lyrical, reflective, and spacious, and also exudes a fresh spontaneity emblematic of the fact that it was recorded in a single day at Golden Retriever Studios.

Geddes is a thoughtful player and also the same as a composer, as indicated by her comment that in writing the material she "wanted the band members to feel supported by the compositions, not boxed in by them.” The album takes its title, by the way, from Redleaf Beach in Sydney, a setting that's comforted Geddes during many visits to the site. Her beautiful touch and tone are evident the moment “Riff” initiates the album with an unaccompanied, chords-heavy intro, the move sneaky in pulling the listen in before the music pivots to a harder-edged ensemble statement marked by intricacy and syncopation. It's not prog per se, but the style's not entirely absent either. A reverberant solo by the leader captures Geddes contributing her first long-form solo, the expression adventurous, probing, fleet-fingered, and, in moments, scalding. As it unfolds, one also hears how attentive her versatile bandmates are to the guitarist and how expertly they calibrate their playing to hers. Emerging out of a freeform, dissonant intro, “Under Oaks, Not Olives” carves a post-rock path through knotty undergrowth, the urgent performance vibrantly alive and the four open to where the music takes them.

The sadness induced by the pandemic era comes to the fore in a slower, contemplative piece such as “The Needling,” whose solemnity calls forth from Geddes a particularly affecting solo. One of the set's biggest slow-burners is “All That Glisters Is Not,” which, with repeated listens, gets under the skin with a druggy, slow-motion pulse and a theme that's both sneakily foreboding and majestic. Sprinkled with the field-recorded sounds of waves and people enjoying their time at the Redleaf beach, “Three Five Ten” concludes the set with a peaceful and painterly rendering of the locale. Some might find the album's emphasis (during its second half in particular) on moody, contemplative reveries excessive, but for listeners attuned to atmospheric interplay it'll be refreshing. A key hope for Geddes is that they come away from the album “content and breathing a little slower,” soothed rather than frazzled by Redleaf. The evidence suggests that Geddes and company have successfully realized that goal by engaging the ears with a nuanced approach refreshingly free of scorched-earth histrionics.

March 2026