We've reviewed many trumpet-bass-drums trios over the years. Here's a new update on some recent material with this line-up. Styles are completely different, yet all of high quality within their subgenre. Interestingly enough, three of the trios presented here are initiated or led by bassists: John Edwards, Joe Morris and Linda May Han Oh.
John Edwards, Luis Vicente, Vasco Trilla - Choreography Of Fractures (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)
"Choreography Of Fractures" is my personal favourite in this list. It's a trio of British bassist John Edwards, Portuguese trumpet player Luis Vicente and Spanish percussionist Vasco Trilla. Their sound is totally open-ended and improvised. The overall tone set by the trumpet is one of melancholy and deep sadness. Vicente’s playing stretches into sensitive, resonant depths, while Edwards and Trilla intensify the sense of desolation through delicate accents and scattered sonic details that form a fractured world struggling to unify.
Vicente and Trilla have released several albums before, either in duets "A Brighter Side of Darkness", "Made of Mist", or in larger ensembles "L3" with Yedo Gibson on sax, or "Live At 1st Spontaneous Music Festival", on "Muracik", "Dog Star", "Chaos And Confucius", "Gravelshard", and I've probably missed a few. The collaboration with Edwards is a winning situation. The music remains wholly unpredictable; even within its sensitivity, it can become harsh and ferocious without growing louder, relying instead on sheer expressive force. Edwards delivers remarkable tone and presence, both in plucked passages and bowed ones. Its relentless intensity is phenomenal.
This is surely one for my end-of-year-list. I'll share also a video below of a performance by the trio. I'm hesitating to share it because the album is even better.
Joe Morris, Tyshawn Sorey , Peter Evans - Comprehensive (Fundacja Słuchaj, 2025)
"Comprehensive" is presented by Joe Morris on bass, Tyshawn Sorey on drums and Peter Evans on trumpet and piccolo trumpet. It is equally outstanding and highly recommended. None of the three musicians need an introduction. Morris and Sorey have performed together before in various bands, Sorey and Evans did on Ingrid Laubrock's "Serpentines". I'm not aware of Morris and Evans collaborating before, yet the interaction works well.
The trio offers four expansive, fully improvised pieces—fascinating, kaleidoscopic sonic visions. The music moves with complete openness, shifting effortlessly from subdued, muted textures to playful staccato exchanges, often in an instant. Evans’ remarkable range and timbral acrobatics are nothing short of spectacular, sparking genuine delight (at least for this listener), yet always remaining fully integrated within the group sound. Morris and Sorey inhabit this terrain with equal assurance, showcasing not only their deep listening but, above all, their creativity in shaping a coherent and intensely engaging musical experience.
The music was recorded on January 30, 2025 at The Bunker in Brooklyn
Russ Johnson, Christian Weber & Dieter Ulrich - To Walk On Eggshells (ezz-thetics, 2025)
This trio is less adventurous yet highy enjoyable. Russ Johnson is on trumpet, Christian Weber on double bass and Dieter Ulrich on drums.
The three musicians are in great shape, as are their boppish tunes and improvisations. The nine tracks are almost equally composed by each band member, showing the total lack of hierarchy in this ensemble. It is fun, upbeat, joyous, energetic and infectious, and alternated with some sad pieces, such as "For A.R" - presumably a tribute to Aderhard Roidinger, an Austrian bassist and graphic designer, and one-time teacher of Christian Weber - and the beautifully old-fashioned and bluesy "Confession".
The recording already dates from December 2009, recorded in a studio in Zürich, but it gets its release only now. Like his "Live At The Hungry Brain" released last year, yet also recorded in 2018, it takes some time before Johnson's trumpet trios get released. Let's hope we do not have to wait that long for the next one.
It's a studio album, and this is music that will only come fully to its right when listened to in a live setting. The recording quality is excellent, as is the playing.
Linda May Han Oh, Ambrose Akinmusire & Tyshawn Sorey - Strange Heavens (Biophilia Records, 2025)
One more trumpet trio album with Tyshawn Sorey on drums, but now with Linda May Han Oh on electric and acoustic bass and Ambrose Akinmusire on trumpet. The drummer and bassist have also collaborated on Vijay Iyer's "Uneasy" and "Compassion".
Akinmusire was member of the trio on Linda Oh's debut album "Entry" from 2008. Sorey and Akinmusire collaborated on John Escreet's "Consequences".
On this album they are in superb form. All the pieces are composed by Linda Oh, with the exception of "Skin" by Geri Allen and "Just Waiting" by Melba Liston.
The title refers to the saying that human beings tend to choose a familiar hell over a strange heaven. Oh explains: "We all experience how easy it is to be lulled into the comfort of something that may actually be quite negative and detrimental to our well-being. We see that often in our daily lives, but I also see it in politics and in grander aspects of humanity.”
All compositions come with a background story or specific inspiration or tribute: "“Living Proof” draws from inspirational stories of self-improvement, in particular that of her own mother. “Acapella” is a reflection on Joni Mitchell’s “The Fiddle and the Drum". “Home,” “Paperbirds,” “Folk Song” and “Working” are elements in an informal suite, inspired by images from Australian author Shaun Tan’s wordless graphic novel "The Arrival".
The music itself is first-rate, more boppish than free, yet the real delight lies in hearing three remarkable musicians giving everything they have. Akinmusire’s radiant tone and stylistic range make every trumpet line a pleasure. Oh’s bass work shines throughout—anchoring the music, steering the compositions, and delivering solos of real character. Her choice of a chordless trio opens the space beautifully, giving her instrument greater presence and allowing the narrative of her music to emerge with striking clarity. Sorey, predictably superb, continues to show why he’s in such high demand, contributing yet another stellar performance to an already prolific couple of years.
And now for something completely different. Or not. The trio of Royal Flux brings an interesting inter-stylistic or eclectic combination of improvised music with a "nu jazz" sound and funky rhythms. The trio are Sarah Kramer on trumpet, flugelhorn, effects, percussion and sounds, voice, Joe Berardi on drums, percussion, electronics and sounds, and Jorge Calderón on bass and percussion.
Kramer released her debut album, "Home", in 2013 and was mostly active as a session musician, and probably best know from the trumpet part in Leonard Cohen's "Dear Heather". The rhythm section is also relatively new to me, with little references of other output.
Listeners drawn to Nils Petter Molvær or late-period Miles Davis may take to this album. It doesn’t strive for grand artistic statements; it’s simply fun. The sound may come across as somewhat synthetic—perhaps too tidy or programmatic for this blog’s usual tastes—but its cool vibe and infectious energy make it worth your attention.
Some will say that a cornet is not a trumpet, but we do not go into too much semantics here and add this great trio too, with Kirk Knuffke on cornet, Stomu Takeishi on bass, and Bill Goodwin on drums.
As we've heard on previous work by Knuffke, he loves that jazz and musical tradition of the United States, especially the deeply emotional and rhythmic bluesy sound of the south. On the thirteen relatively short tracks - all between 3 to 5 minutes - he brings easy to memorize tunes and themes that are often infectious. Knuffke's vision is that he's "concerned with making beautiful music. Even when the music is free and avant-garde, I want it to reach into people’s hearts".
On some tracks, Knuffke sings, in a bluesy baritone voice, something he's done before on other albums, and it works well to provide some variety to the music. Variety is also brought by the three "Gong Suites", freely improvised pieces that are sprinkled among the other tracks, minimal and percussion-driven.
Bill Goodwin also recites "A Divine Image", a William Blake poem.
A Divine Image
Cruelty has a Human Heart
And Jealousy a Human Face
Terror the Human Form Divine
And Secrecy, the Human Dress
The Human Dress, is forged Iron
The Human Form, a fiery Forge.
The Human Face, a Furnace seal'd
The Human Heart, its hungry Gorge.
This is music without pretence, with the only ambition to develop high quality music that listeners enjoy.
Nothing in Duisburg stays stuck in place for long. The north-west German
city, where the Rhine and Ruhr rivers converge, is home to the world’s
largest inland port. That gives it a restless and fast-flowing character
that neatly matches bassist Linda May Han Oh’s music. Her band sailed into
town on a cold night in mid-November to deliver a shipment of buoyant sonic
cargo.
Much of that buoyancy derived from three-part harmonies combining vocals
from Oh and Sara Serpa with Will Vinson’s strident alto saxophone. Their
voices resounded off the Lutherkirche’s black stone floor and floated up to
its high ceiling. Whirlwind percussion from Mark Whitfield Jr. completed the
group. Pianist Fabian Almazan was also aboard the band’s European voyage but
missed this show due to (sea)sickness. The concert was part of the
long-running
Intermezzo
series.
To cast off, the four-person crew used the rapid current of their leader’s
output to merge two tunes together. “Respite”, from the bassist’s sixth
album Glass Hours(Biopihilia Records, 2024), surged into a new
piece called “Block Party”. Oh was light-footed, dipping her bass like a
ballroom dance partner. Her dynamism imbued the written and spontaneous
material with irresistible momentum.
Just after the halftime interval, “Halo” gave the audience a chance to more
deeply immerse themselves in Serpa’s singing. The Portuguese improviser’s
expansive low notes flooded the venue and her crystalline high register
sparkled. The song is another bouncy composition that featured a boppy
saxophone solo followed by stormy sections from bass and drums.
With their piano-playing shipmate on shore leave, Vinson made two attempts
to navigate the keyboard. He even embarked on an extensive solo on “Prayer
for Freedom”, where the rhythmic focus contrasted with his more
phrase-driven saxophone explorations. Whitfield Jr. added a military
undercurrent via his snare. The effervescent drummer earned several of the
night’s loudest ovations.
Unusually, this tune used English-language lyrics instead of non-lexical
vocals. That gave it the air of a sermon preached at the church’s
congregation, while most of the concert felt more like a collective
revelation. This was an evening of venturesome music from a band that
transported listeners to warmer places than chilly Duisburg—before floating
away on the ocean of life, like a ship passing in the night.
I was at a house concert once, many years ago, where Evan Parker gave a twenty minute solo concert. I was sitting in a plush chair approximately two feet away from the saxophonist and recall being simply spellbound. The proximity to the sound was hypnotizing and the effects were long lasting - the sights and sounds come quickly back to mind whenever I encounter Parker's playing. But enough of this yammering, here is a video that popped up recently of a solo concert from a Queens' College Chapel in Cambridge, MA:
I first wrote about AMM at some length about 25 years ago. The most durable
sentence in the piece (further expanded at length ten years ago and since
supplemented with regular reviews) might be “AMM deserves hearing in inverse
proportion to which it can be talked about successfully.” While I still
believe that, I’ve learned nothing from it, and continue to try, if only to
alert fellow listeners to the availability of new releases.
David Ilic once wrote in The Wire that “With AMM, their albums are
as alike or unalike as trees.” That may be truer of some editions of the
group than others, with Eddie Prévost as the sole constant in the group’s
nearly sixty-year history, and that allusion to trees may take on special
significance in the performance under discussion: Testing documents
a concert at the Museum of Garden History in Lambeth, London. The concert
took place on December 13 th 2004 when AMM existed in one of its
duo forms, with EddiePrévost here playing tam-tam, stringed barrel
drum and other percussion and John Tilbury playing piano. They’re joined by
guest Sachiko M, who plays sinewaves. Testing is a single piece,
running to 1:07:33. The work is sufficiently subtle, the sonic materials so
spacious and mysterious, that some identities here attributed to the sounds
might well be mistaken.
In addition to Tilbury’s gifts as an improviser, he is also one of the most
distinguished interpreters of recent piano compositions, with a special
affinity for the work of Morton Feldman, those works that are at once
minimalist in gesture and vastly expansive in time. Testing begins
as a study in the ineffable. Prévost’s initial rumbles of bass percussion
give way to his scraped and bowed cymbals, inviting Sachiko M’s high-pitched
sine waves and Tilbury’s spare contribution of isolated piano tones,
initially in the bass register.
There is no slight intended in suggesting that there’s a fundamental
resemblance between Tilbury’s luminous, floating and concentrated inventions
and the depth of resource that he brings to the music of Feldman and others.
Prévost’s usual instruments are here, his use of resonating surfaces and
varied materials often as sustained as they are percussive. He has a special
instrument here, a barrel drum replete with strings, that he explores with
sustained ferocity at one point in the piece, plucking at the strings that
hold it all together, suggesting the presence of a particularly rugged
string bass. The vast and vibrating space of the piece suits Sachiko M
perfectly, her sinewave generator adding sustained fields of organizing
tones to the enterprise, resulting in a trio that feels perfectly
orchestral.
A note on Testing’s liner essay: Testing is a work that
might challenge any commentator—vast, subtly shifting, dream-like, a reverie
that’s outside language’s capacity to describe, a spacious sound world for
which words might seem particularly ill suited. However, Seymour Wright has
contributed a liner note to Testing that seems perfectly apt.
Wright has recently written highly insightful essays on jazz and free
improvisation, notably on Horace Silver and John Butcher, and he has a long
association with both Prévost’s workshops and various bands. His
contribution here, as an attendee at the 2004 performance, explores
relationships between the Museum and its gardens, as well as the music’s
unfolding in time. It’s a telling enrichment, a complementary reverie that
somehow fuses the setting with the music itself. It’s the kind of thing that
has long made the associated materials of Matchless recordings, usually
Eddie Prévost’s own writings, among the most
enlightening and expansive documents in the arena of improvised music.
Experiencing a collaborative project by the idiosyncratic producer-composer duo—Austrian keyboard player Elias Stemeseder and German drummer Christian Lillinger—live or as a recording, throws you into an exploratory, inquisitive, multilayered, kinetic-sonic, electroacoustic journey. They suggest a post-genre utopia that draws inspiration from modern jazz, contemporary music, and sound art practices, equipped with a telepathic interplay of an inseparable sonic organism, a wealth of compositional strategies, instruments, production methods, and an everlasting process of creating an uncompromisingly personal sonic idiom through this complex synthesis of disparate modes of musical thought. They act like a sonic lab that questions common playing techniques, exploring, expanding, and rediscovering the sonic palettes of their instruments. On their live performances, the music becomes an arresting, constantly shifting, three-dimensional choreography of sounds.
Stemeseder / Lillinger - PENUMBRA II (Plaist, 2025)
On their UMBRA and ANTUMBRA projects, Stemeseder and Lillinger hosted
like-minded improvisers such as Craig Taborn, Peter Evans, and DoYeon Kim.
PENUMBRA II, which follows PENUMBRA (2023, both released by Lillinger’s label,
Playlist), offers a further insight into the Stemeseder-Lillinger core duo’s
work. conceived, developed, and manifested in real time, free of templates but
rich in references. The Penumbra mode expands into radical sonic research
methods and production processes, encompassing acoustic, electroacoustic, and
electronic settings. Stemeseder plays the piano, spinet, synths, and
electronics; Lillinger plays the drums, percussion, synth, and electronics, and
mixed the album, which was recorded live at Schwere Reiter art center in Munich
in September 2023.
Each of the seven pieces offers a distinct,
inquisitive approach to acoustic and physical space, signal processing
strategies, self-manipulated samples, reciprocal feedback systems, composition,
performance posture, aesthetics, and texture. All are articulated with
structural precision. Each piece suggests its own musical environment and
demonstrates how Stemeseder and Lillinger can instantly create a rich and
layered musical universe out of a disparate, fleeting musical idea, being
possessed by it but without attaching themselves to it. Surprisingly, despite
the complex and dense dynamics, non-linear nature, and urgent kinetic energy,
Stemeseder and Lillinger’s music flows in the most organic manner . Most likely,
you will need a few focused sessions of listening to figure out what, and on how
much level Stemeseder and Lillinger do at any given moment. But each listening
guarantees more enlightening insights about the intriguing music.
Lillinger’s video work, projected onto their bodies and instruments,
intensified the live performances with a visual dimension. This work acts as
another aesthetic impulse for each piece, influencing posture and spatial
arrangement, and offering new insights and perspectives.
These pieces
stress the complex sonic-visual discourse of the Stemeseder-Lillinger duo and
the synesthesia-like, utopian experience they seek to share. Sound and image, as
structure and movement, are inseparable, and together they allow a renewed
understanding of the duo’s transformative artistic process. Stemeseder-Lillinger
seeks to create a unified experience of electroacoustic instruments,
performances, and the distinct space, as all are part of the spontaneous
audio-visual process that keeps negotiating the charting of its own topology,
moment to moment.
Algol is an electroacoustic detour of the Stemeseder-Lillinger duo with
Peruvain. Mexico City-based flutist Camilo Ángeles alternates between self-made
aerophones, synths, and electronics. Algol is a solar system called "the demon
star”, or an early algorithmic Language, and both meanings correspond with this
trio’s aesthetic. The debut self-titled of this trio was recorded during a tour
in Latin America at Estudios Noviembre in Mexico City in February 2024.
Lillinger mastered the album.
Ángeles fits perfectly into
Stemeseder-Lillinger’s sonic vision. He is interested in the hybridization of
aesthetics and searches for his own aesthetic vision through a deconstructed
approach to the flute and its conventional musical language. He uses extended
breathing techniques, preparations, hyper amplification, and electronic
processing.
Algul takes the Stemeseder-Lillinger’s open system of
real-time sonic construction, which operates at the intersection of composition,
improvisation, and electroacoustic experimentation, but twists it with ethereal,
percussive vibrations. Algol dynamics juggle seamlessly between atmospheric
textures punctuated with fragmented, sometimes even explosive pulses, methodical
timbral research, and microtonal sensibility. Like the Penumbra mode, Algol’s
multilayered textures emerge and dissolve instantly within its post-genre
equilibrium, but with surprising playful dynamics and with mathematical
precision.
Argentine “undisciplinary” composer and sound artist
Julián Galay, who wrote the liner notes, observed that Algol seems to compress
the historical time of its traditional instruments - piano, drums, and flute, as
well as its hybrid instruments - self-made aerophones, spinet, synthesizers, and
samplers, just as stars compress their gravity until it concentrates into a
single bright point. “That gravitational force dismantles any linguistic
boundary: baroque, contemporary, experimental, jazz, and electroacoustics all
become blurred. The result alters the past—like a great red giant star that,
though long dead, continues to radiate light—the present, and therefore the
future”.
Stemeseder-Lillinger’s music, just like Algol’s music,
may be the free music of the future, always in motion, and always redefining
anew its restless, expansive, and exploratory aesthetics.
Vinny Golia / Ken Filiano / Michael TA Thompson - Catastasis (Nine Winds
Records, 2025)
An absolute album of the year. This trio exudes not just technical brilliance,
but a raw, responsive musical empathy. The interplay of West Coast woodwindist
Vinny Golia and New York's Ken Filiano (on bass) and Michael TA Thompson
(on drums) feels like a intense conversation -- full of risk, wit, and
experience.
Catastasis is simply full of musical ideas as the trio engages in a
sonic dialogue that defies genre and expectation. With Golia’s multi-reed
wizardry, Filiano’s resonant bass explorations, and Thompson’s sculptural
approach to rhythm, their music unfolds dense with texture, alive with lyrical
tension, and charged with dynamic abstraction. Each piece feels both
meticulously fractured and spontaneously whole, as composed fragments dissolve
into free-flowing improvisation. The result is a captivating soundscape where
all the best avant-garde impulses collide, cohere, and reconfigure in real
time.
The amount of music is also quite generous, the first track "NY-1" is 40
minutes, "NY-2" is 33 and "NY-3" is 30. This is a lot of time to work through
the rich multifaceted ideas on Catastasis. 'NY-1' is a slow, well,
medium paced, build up. The tension mounts decidedly through Thompson's color
drumming and Filiano's full ungirding. They make it (seemingly) easy for Golia
to layer jam-packed melodic ideas on top. 'NY-2' finds the group in slighlty
more spacious territory, and on 'NY-3', Golia starts on clarinet, giving the
piece a different sonic texture, leading eventually to fraught, arcing lines.
The catastasis,in dramatic terms is the fourth and fifth part of
a classical tragedy, the climax before the tragedy. This is the intense part
of the work, and trusting that true catastrophe was avoided,
Catastasis, the album,presents simply the best parts.
This ensemble operates at the intersection of chamber jazz and free
improvisation, where compositional restraint meets expressive abandon. Vinny
Golia’s reed work anchors the group’s work, threading through contrapuntal
textures and spontaneous harmonic shifts. The music is both light and rich,
with the rooted elements supporting ephemeral moments.
The instrumentation, as one may expect is full of vibrant, organic timbres.
Golia brings from LA a cross section of his instrument arsenal: Ab (piccolo)
and Bb clarinets, soprano and baritone saxophones, and flute. Neil Welch, a
Seattle based improvisor and educator contributes bass and tenor saxophones,
while another Washington based musician, educator and sonic explorer Steph
Richards plays trumpet and flugelhorn, Aniela Perry, also hailing from the
Seattle area (this time from a nearby island), is on cello and Seattle's
Kelsey Mines plays bass and provides vocals.
New Chamber Idiom is full of shifting, shimmering sounds. It mixes
challenging but accessible melodic forays that sport atonal off-shoots and
exploratory excursions. Comprised of two tracks - a cohesive 44 minute piece
entitled 'no maps for the Interior' followed by presumably the encore aptly
entitled piece 'a little something to remember us by.' The former piece begins
with Golia on clarinet and most prominently Mines' bass and very faint
vocalizations, and is soon enriched by Perry's cello, which moves the piece in
a classical direction. In due time, Richards and Welch make their presence
felt.
New Chamber Idiom is a recording that grows, each listening revealing
new details.
*A quick disclaimer, Sonic Action is run by Free Jazz
Blog contributor Gregg Miller.
Continuing the collaboration with bassist and vocalist Kelsey Mines from the Chamber Quintet, this duo outing is an stripped back, intimate affair that explores similar classical-like abstractions. The focus here is, obviously, much more on Golia's woodwinds and Mines' bass, with her vocalizations filling in the space between the outlines they make. The music is both gentle and sharp - to be listened to with care. The cover image, a drawing by Emile Quanjel entitled "Eternal Now (for Charles Gayle)" is a perfect visual for the sounds with in - abstract but figurative, the outlines of a man made by lite pen strokes is accentuated with splashes of color reacting to the shapes. The music does just this, hardly taking on a set structure, actual musical shapes do emerge into fully comprehensible forms. A perfect example is 'Improv 8,' in which Golia paints with a thick, but light, tone that Mines underscores. The legato lines stretch and encircle, forming a something just beyond tangibility.
The (Exit) Knarr project by esteemed Norwegian composer, bassist, bandleader
and apparent Austin, TX local Ingebrigt Håker Flaten has been putting out
some tremendous music over the past couple of years. Ingebrigt is very well
known here for his work with
Atomic, School Days,
The Thing, and
The Bridge
among so many other fantastic groups and projects in addition to organizing
the annual Sonic Transmissions Festival in Austin. The (Exit) Knarr released
two stunning albums in late 2024 - one studio, one live - that I
unfortunately didn’t get around to really listening to until earlier this
year.
Their sophomore album
Breezy -
named in tribute to his friend and collaborator, the inimitable Jamie Branch
- is an unbelievably good amalgam of free jazz, noise, and electronic music
that left me with a singular urge to hear it all again immediately and
struck me as a wonderful homage. There’s also the live album
Live
at artacts ‘22 which documents a great performance at the Alte Gerberei
in St. Johann in Tirol. Captured during the last stop of their 2022 EU tour,
the album also features the last performance of the band’s previous lineup
with Mette Rasmussen and Atle Nymo on saxophones and Oddrun Lilja Jonsdottir
on guitar. For this version of the (Exit) Knarr the ensemble has been
reconfigured as a sextet with Ingebrigt and drummer Olaf Olsen the only
remaining members from the original line-up. Here the saxophones are played
by Amalie Dahl and Karl Hjalmar Nyberg (returning from last year’s “Breezy”)
with Jonathan F. Horne on guitar and the revelatory Marta Warelis on piano
and electronics.
The first piece is a rendition of the Wayne Shorter composition “Deluge”
from his classic 1965 album “JuJu” - one of Shorter’s best Blue Note
releases along with “Night Dreamer” and “Speak No Evil” - with Rasmussen and
Veslemøy Narvesen back on alto and drums, respectively. The piece starts off
with the original melodies' last two descending notes voiced as tinny guitar
chords and played like match strikes - igniting a swell of horns as the
percussion abruptly skitters to form like bugs crawling from under a flipped
rock. The saxophones play homage to the composer with long bluesy lines that
act to briefly stabilize the piece against its jerky foundations until
pointillist guitar flourishes and chaotic electronics usher in its
unraveling. A unique and dramatic take on the original that strikes the
perfect balance of paying homage and stretching the piece to new places.
“Drops” is a graphical score realized via wispy lyricism in reserved
gestures, tip-toeing from behind the curtain. The bass and piano engage in a
short dialogue of pulled arco notes and twinkling key work that draws in
rustles of percussion as a bed for the horns. An intriguing piece that is
concise but unhurried.
The next track might be my favorite of the set - dubbed “Kanón” and
dedicated to Paul Nillsen-Love, it’s a good old fashioned throw down of
sorts. The extended, staccato intro explodes into a quickening and angular
riff, building momentum beneath the saxophones. Electronics wash the canvas
clean and the group begins anew with Ingebrigt’s walking bass line ushering
in more solos and engaging group interplay. Warelis really shines on the
track, delivering an intense solo as the ensemble periodically coalesce into
a vamp and then burst with aggressive, electronics and guitar squall. The
last piece is “Austin Vibes” which was post processed by saxophonist Karl
Hjalmar Nyberg into something like an audio fever dream. It starts off
sounding like a skipping CD, flickers of the ensemble shift through
fragmented audio streams. The piece reassembles and the band is in full
swing, trading solos against a deft group melody. The track is a microcosm
of their shifting, dynamic sound and experimental leanings and closes the
album on a dense, energetic note.
The provocative Temple of Muses is a collaborative effort among four
master improvisers who also share an artistic vision. Norwegian guitarist
Stian Larsen joins two of his past collaborators, Englishmen Andrew Lisle on
drums and Colin Webster on saxophone, for this session. Italian-English
bassist Ruth Goller is new to the group, yet she is completely in sync with
the others. Consisting of six fiery pieces, the album is equal parts raw
emotion and intelligent, intricate harmonic constructs.
The explosive intro “Haunts of Crows”, clocking only a bit over two minutes,
sets the mood for the recording. Lisle’s thunderous polyrhythms mix with
Goller’s muscular bass lines, creating a riotous cadence. Webster wails
with abandon, coaxing out of his horn agile and angular phrases while
Norwegian guitarist Stian Larson contributes blistering chords to the group
conversation. The performance reaches a climax just before it concludes with
a rapid and elegant decrescendo.
Elsewhere, “Vivid Aspects” is contemplative with Lisle’s rustling
percussion, Goller’s expectant reverberations, and Larsen’s tolling strings
creating a haunting ambience. Webster punctuates the music with soft pops
and fluttering notes. The collective improvisation is simultaneously
captivating with its cinematic soundscapes and angst-producing with the
undercurrent of dark tones. As with the rest of the pieces, the quarter
here functions as a single unit, yet one that does not sacrifice the
individual voices of its members. The tune ends with a furious expression
of hope.
The title track in length and breadth forms the core of this stimulating
release. Opening with sparse drum beats and resonant basslines, it evolves
into a dramatic repartee. Larsen enters with a pensive, introspective melody
while Webster blows with languid melancholy. Slowly, the ensemble refrains
pick up in tempo, becoming more crystalline and complex without abandoning
the use of silent pauses entirely. Passionate and cerebral, the music brims
with a primal spirituality. Here, yet again, the musicians demonstrate
sublime camaraderie in a setting brimming with spontaneity and delightful
dissonance.
Calling the Temple of Muses gripping is an understatement. The
ensemble deftly demonstrates the power and beauty of extemporized music. It
is a taut and thrilling work that satisfies and moves from the first note to
the last.
Sophie Agnel has released a bevy of brilliant releases in recent years,
including the solo CD Song (Relative Pitch, 2025); two duos with John
Butcher, la pierre tachée (Ni Vu Ni Connu, 2022) and Rare (Victo, 2025); the
exploratory quartet recording Quartet un peu Tendre with saxophonist Daunik
Lazro and the electronic duo of “Kristoff K. Roll” (Fou Records, 2024); a
luminous duet, Draw Bridge, with percussionist Michael Zerang (Relative
Pitch, 2024); and the brilliant archival LP Gargorium, recorded in 2008/2009
by a trio with Lazro and guitarist Olivier Benoit (Fou, 2023).
Learning further extends that body of work. It is Agnel’s first solo
recording to be released on LP, each side devoted to a single improvisation,
but with a certain symmetry. Side A was recorded on June 6, 2023 and runs
18:42; Side B was recorded on June 4, 2024 and runs 18:47, each from an
event at Café Oto. It’s stunning playing, each side a work of continuous
evolution in which Agnel mines the piano’s every resource, whether adding
materials to the strings, plucking the interior, or producing thunderous
explosions at the keyboard. That title Learning might refer to the voyage of
discovery undertaken at the piano’s multiple continents, its exterior,
Interior and combinations thereof, its compound identity an embodiment of
her deeply traditioned and yet infinitely extensible and divisible art.
There’s an insistence here on the significance of the piano’s whole and
original name, pianoforte, the instrument as soft and loud, as sweet and
harsh as it might ever be, evident throughout 'Learning A,' whether its
factory-strength, brutalist machine sounds from prepared bass register,
subtle glissandi whispering on upper register strings, or voice-like
murmurings drawn on the middle register. One feels the whole of the piano’s
varied (and potential) resources. In one extended quiet passage there’s a
mix of keyboard articulations and violin-like sustained notes from the
strings themselves, likely owing to an e-bow. Another quiet passage has
consonant clusters oscillating in the upper register.
'Learning B' is more of the same and yet utterly different, another deep dive
into the instrument’s resources, bass clusters roaring against insistently
sweet middle-register tremolos, the quiet twittering of birds, saw-like
carpentry noises and even sounds that can only be described as the flotsam
and jetsam, lagan and derelict, that is, the varied categories of debris of
the piano’s oceanic potential. There are instances of the piano’s mystery
and sweetness, hitherto undreamt of, yet arising here, coming into audition.
There’s a lovely drone passage that might be achieved with two e-bows, a
middle register drone and a high one. The piece ends in a beautiful
assortment of little sounds, whispering, tinkling, drawing out to silence.
This is special music, all of it profound, open, glowing, generous,
empathetic, reaching.
Last year, Sylvie Courvoisier's "Chimaera" was one of our favourite albums.
The video below gives the full album, recorded live at the Bimhuis in Amsterdam in July 2024. The band are Nate Wooley on trumpet, Wadada Leo Smith on trumpet, Sylvie Courvoisier on piano, Christian Fennesz on guitar/electronics, Drew Gress on doublebass, Kenny Wollessen on drums/vibraphone, Nasheet Waits drums.
