Trish Clowes: ‘Try Me’

It’s always good to read that artists are recording their own compositions and, once again, that is true with the latest from saxophonist Trish Clowes.

Try Me is Trish Clowes’s brilliant new album with her My Iris quartet.

My Iris takes Clowes’s saxes and pits them sonically with Chris Montague (guitar), Ross Stanley (piano and Hammond organ) and Joel Barford (drums). Individually, these are four musicians at the top of their game and collectively, they . Clowes says: “The writing is also hugely inspired by the individual personalities of the musicians. As with all my tunes, my ideas are there to provoke, make space, and shine a spotlight.”

Clowes is already a well-respected sax player and her work with My Iris can only cement that reputation. A highly inventive composer and improviser, she took inspiration for all the tunes on Try Me from a cold January stroll along London’s Thames pathway from Rotherhithe to Blackfriar’s Bridge. The quartet take those inspired tunes and improvise accordingly, from the opening Walking, which features outstanding solos from each one until they seem to walk off into the distance.

Next up is For the Darklings, sparked by 'the mysterious darklings', a phrase from a poem by guitarist Mike Walker which Clowes first set to music in 2014 for legendary vocalist Norma Winstone. Some of Walker’s words are included in the album artwork after artist Tríona Milne responded strongly to the poem: the art is as gorgeous as the music!

Each tune has its own specific starting point and the quartet bring their own creativity, with Clowes’s sax the pivotal axis on which it all turns.

Ending at St Saviour’s Dock just as her walk did, the opening soprano sax notes evoke the sounds of the Thames as it winds through the city of London. Clowes says: “It’s one of the most enigmatic spaces I have come across in London. The unique echoes, the sounds of various birds, the metallic sounds of construction work – I knew immediately I needed to construct a piece using saxophone extended techniques, playing into the piano strings with the sustain pedal down, and then write a melody from the resultant harmony and structure of the tenor saxophone multiphonics. We’ve performed this tune in a whole variety of ways now, but for the recording I wanted the stark contrast of the soprano saxophone for the main melody of the last track.” 

The UK seems to be producing some simply extraordinary sax players right now, and Trish Clowes definitely proves her place on that list with Try Me.

Trish Clowes’ ‘Try Me’ is out on Stoney Lane Records on 5 June 2026