Can three guys subvert modern technology in the service of harnessing rock’s tensile strength and pilfering it via improvisation’s elastic means? Yep — they’re called Radian; but wait, the same ground rules apply to Trapist as well. Both units feature percussionist Martin Brandlmayr, who seems to have come from the Bernhard Günter school of pregnant pauses, because Mr. Brandlmayr’s potency is buoyed as much by what he doesn’t play than what he does. Guitarist Martin Siewert — whose solo release on the Mosz label, No Need to Be Lonesome, curtails everything anyone knows about acousmatic interlacing, and is a criminally under-recognized slab of plastic to boot — has few precedents: he’s as elastic as they come, and as pliable, sharp of wit, a conscientious self-editor. Bassist Joe Williamson largely leaves his instrument functionally intact, yet he’s unafraid to work some Mingus mojo into the digital battlefield when the klaxon sounds. “Power” trio? A more preferential description might be “plugged-in” (as in a Web “plug-in”) because, for all the non-electric playing going on, Trapist are too enamored with the silicon slipstream that crystallizes their defining moments.
Tough to call Highway My Friend “minimal” (way too much business occurring for that to be the case), but Trapist disguise their bric-a-brac extremely well — little seems to “happen” until you realize half the recording’s finished and you’re left immersed in the trio’s aural wake. Right from the outset, “Mascoma” announces itself with a single struck bass chord adorned by cymbal trickle and snare-edge prickle; as the rhythm section mumbles nonchalantly, Siewert dons his cloak and dagger, flicking lapsteel strings while working laptop drones. This hovering miasma holds your breath in place for its nine-minute entirety — you await a crescendo that never arrives because the pressurized prologue is simply too absolute. Digital ferrets nudge their way into the buzzing landscapes of the lengthy “E101” as the group putter about with tapered feedback, a reminder how sticky sweet electricity can be when the amperage never gets too ungainly.
Both “Fenrus” and the album-ender “Mile” appear at first to be a showcase for Brandlmayr’s winsome talents, but Siewert ain’t having none of it — this is, after all, a trio — as the guitarist squeaks out metallic embroidery from his string-driven thing(s) and Williamson’s bass scurries in the background. When Siewert dips back into his electronic bag of tricks and gets all squiggy on us, Highway My Friend suddenly conjures visions of a parallel-dimension King Crimson simmering through its amps, soft(ware)-wired instead of mellotron-enhanced, short-circuiting minimalist aesthetics through jazz’s multiphasic conduits.
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