MAMMAL Hands is a trio of like-minded musicians, Nick Smart (piano), Jesse Barrett (drums and tabla), and Jordan Smart (saxophones).

Signed to Matthew Halsall’s Gondwana Records they have carved out a growing following both here and abroad for their hypnotic fusion of jazz, folk and electronica: winning fans from Bonobo and Gilles Peterson to Jamie Cullum and they have been compared to both Portico Quartet and GoGo Penguin(who the group have toured with) for the way in which they navigate the choppy waters between contemporary dance music and jazz.

Drawing on a rich well of influences from Sufi and shamanic African trance music, Irish and Eastern European folk music, to Steve Reich and Philip Glass and more contemporary electronica influences, their music is built around deceptively simple sounding ideas that are lent power through the use of repetition and rhythmic loops. Following their new album Floa the band are currently touring and play Gwdihw, Cardiff on June 11.

Andy Howells put some questions to them.

How did Mammal Hands first get together?

We first met when we were out busking in Norwich, Nick and Jordan were playing some guitar and saxophone material and ended up speaking to Jesse who'd been watching for a bit and we all decided we would meet up to play some stuff and it just went from there!

Who or what has inspired you most on your musical journey?

I think there's probably a different answer to this for each of us. There have been lots of different inspirational people and moments when we have each discovered new music that changes your perspective on writing or playing, it's quite difficult to pick any

one main influence. For Jesse, he has also been studying tabla with Sirishkumar Manji for around ten years, and he's been a really important mentor for him.

Can you give us some background about your latest release?

Floa was recorded in Manchester at 80 Hertz Studios and we started working on it in August last year, completing recording by the end of January 2016. For us it's been the focus of our playing and composing for the last year and a half, and we're really happy with the outcome.

You’re touring shortly are you looking forward to that?

We're all really looking forward to the tour, there's a really nice mix of gigs, some venues we've been to before and some cities we've never been to which is really exciting for us. We're looking forward to seeing what the response is to our new material.

What can people expect from your forthcoming Cardiff gig?

We're going to play a lot of the new material as well as some stuff from Animalia, hopefully we'll take the listeners on a journey throughout the set that moves through everything from quiet, reflective moments to more frantic and chaotic sections.

What are you enjoying listening to at the moment?

Jordan's been checking out some Kneedelus  (collaboration between Kneebody and Ninja tunes producer Daedelus) and Brian Finnegan, Jesse's been listening to Skalpel, Debashish Bhattacharya and Ahmad Jamal live at the Alhambra. Nick's been going through some Brainfeeder records by Teebs and Flying Lotus.

What else have you got planned for the rest of the year?

After we've finished this tour, we are heading to the US and Canada to do some shows and later we plan on starting recording and production on our third album. And we've got some really cool stuff in Europe coming up later in the year.

For further details  visit mammalhands.com https://twitter.com/MammalHands https://www.facebook.com/MammalHands/