eJazzNews Archive

Steve Lawson & Theo Travis: For the Love of Open Spaces (Pillow Mountain Records)

Originally published on eJazzNews · · By Paul Donnelly · CD Reviews

On January 16, 2004, eJazzNews published Paul Donnelly’s review of For the Love of Open Spaces, an album of largely improvised duets by British bassist Steve Lawson and saxophonist and flutist Theo Travis, released in 2003 on Pillow Mountain Records. The review compared parts of it to Robert Fripp’s guitar soundscapes; a few years later Travis began a long-running duo with Fripp himself.

What the review said

Donnelly described six open, spacious pieces in which bass and saxophone or flute were multiplied through looping, recorded in real time with no overdubs, so that at moments several basses or flutes seem to sound at once. He heard a resemblance to Fripp’s soundscapes in “Blurred Vision,” where the instruments become hard to identify, and in the long title track. He singled out “Lovely,” a short ballad with Travis on soprano saxophone over Lawson’s untreated bass, as an example of how concise improvisation can be, and noted the trance-like flute section of “In a Place Like This,” the breathy, clear lines of “Flutter,” and the wah-wah funk of “Uncle Bernie,” where Lawson’s bass sounds close to a fuzz guitar. His verdict: gentle music that stays engaging and never drifts into directionless ambient sound.

About the album

For the Love of Open Spaces (Pillow Mountain Records PMR 0014, 2003) credits Lawson with bass and loops and Travis with alto flute, soprano saxophone and loops. The track lengths bear out the review’s details: “Lovely” is the shortest at 3:56, “In a Place Like This” runs 10:26, and the title track closes the album at 14:27. Lawson’s own site lists the review among the press for the record, alongside notices from The Penguin Guide to Jazz on CD and Aural Innovations.

The looping approach was not new to Travis. His solo album Slow Life (Ether Sounds, 2003) is an ambient record built from loops on which he is the only performer.

What happened next

In 2006 Travis joined Soft Machine, then still billed as Soft Machine Legacy. From 2008 he also worked with Robert Fripp in the duo Travis & Fripp, starting with the album Thread, and he became a regular collaborator of Steven Wilson, on record and in his touring band. Soft Machine’s studio album Thirteen, which Travis produced and for which he wrote six of the thirteen pieces, came out on Dyad Records on March 13, 2026, with UK and European touring planned through 2027.

Lawson has continued as a solo bassist and improviser, still posting new work on his site in 2026. According to his biography, he plays a six-string bass with live electronics, releases much of his music through a Bandcamp subscription that delivers new albums to subscribers throughout the year, and has worked with Reeves Gabrels, Jason Cooper of the Cure and Divinity Roxx. For background on improvising, see our guide to jazz improvisation.

Sources

This page is based on an article from the original eJazzNews archive (2001 to 2018), with background and sources added in 2026. The original text is not republished here. You can read the original as it appeared on eJazzNews via the Internet Archive.
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