Trios (review)

Four musicians + one assembler/ editor/recontextualizer = Trios. Improvisations recorded on two separate dates by two different trios (Larry Polansky, douglas repetto, Chris Mann, and Mr. Polansky, Mr. repetto, Christian Wolff, respectively), and reassembled, edited, and generally reworked at will at a later date (by Mr. Erbe), the music of Trios is a sonic stew of postmodern proportions. It is a music that invites and even revels in contradictions, oppositions, simultaneities, and de-/recontextualizations.

In juxtaposing recordings of live improvisations within studio-tailored treatments of them, Trios neatly confronts a number of binary oppositions seemingly entrenched in traditional musical discourse: live/studio, real-time/ non real-time, improvisation/ composition, human-performed/ computer-produced, acoustic/electronic, author/interpreter, technician/ creator, etc. But these confrontations do not consist of detailed explication and reasoned argumentation in either musical or textual language. It is rather a case of problemetization-in-action. Musically, the package seems to present all of these issues all of the time, without specifically addressing any of them individually. The intensely minimal nature of the liner notes is itself a central agent in this confrontation. The liner notes list no individual titles (except Track One, Track Two, etc.), and do not delineate personnel on a per-track basis. Even the recording details outlined in the paragraph above were taken from the record company Web site rather than from the disc; the recording information and respective roles are not detailed on the disc itself beyond identifying individuals and their respective sonic/instrumental domains. In other words, as a package the disc and liner notes present the sonic results and the actors respectively, and seemingly not much else. But much more is implied, if only by omission. Especially because the pieces themselves are exercises in recontextualization, by intentionally not contextualizing them in the liner notes in familiar terms of authorship, linear process, artistic and technical production, power dynamics, artistic intention, etc., the creators throw open to question many of the prevailing notions of modernist musical thinking.

Musically, the six tracks form a remarkably coherent set of pieces totaling just under an hour. With individual track times ranging from under 3 minutes to over 15, none of the pieces is significantly different from the others in overall impression or in its particularities. Listening from beginning to end is a largely seamless experience. However, underneath what at first listening seemed to me to be a largely undifferentiated stream of sounds, the disc revealed itself, upon repeated listening and thinking/reflection, to be a deftly executed and skillfully produced musical experience. The sound world consists of various layers of voice (sometimes distinct and audible, often not), computer/electronics (sometimes processing/interacting with the voice, at times independent of it), electric guitar (feedback, warbling, and "notes"), piano (occasionally sounding "prepared"), with somewhat more sparse touches of bass, melodica, and percussion. Distortion, crackles, and buzzes abound. There are localized regions where musical interaction is clear, and vast stretches where it seems that independent simultaneity is the primary interest. Carving out space within the often-dense textures is deftly accomplished through spatial location and processing, highlighting a sense of aural perspective that is subtly manipulated, thereby avoiding what otherwise might have been a sonically monotonous and impenetrable mass. Dynamic interplay of individual elements fading and/or cutting in and out, recombining in various permutations, creates a sense of motion and timbral/textural rhythm without engendering the perception of linear development. None of the tracks follow any sort of obvious formal trajectory, but rather they seem to ebb and flow at various rates of change. What emerges over the course of the disc is a music full of detail and subtle variation that rewards repeated listening with a richness of timbre and texture.

The following characterizations are not meant to be detailed descriptions of the...