Music
Trichotomy
Jazz Bar
Rob Adams
THREE STARS
It’s coming up for seven years since the Australian piano-bass-drums combo Trichotomy’s previous visit to the Jazz Bar, although it was surely just a coincidence that they opened with a number called It’s Strange Coming Back. This contemplative, moody piece features on their new album, Known-Unknown, which they are over here to promote and which marks the arrival in their sound of electronically generated beats and figures.
These subtly applied effects aside, their music remains familiar from before. It joins the dots between the ultra-popular Swedes E.S.T.’s canny explorations of moods and the Neil Cowley Trio’s manipulation of repeated arpeggios while also having distinctive elements including pianist Sean Foran’s pearly improvising touch, bassist Sam Vincent’s deftly played punctuating riffs and drummer John Parker’s controlled, time-stretching explosions.
All three musicians contribute to the repertoire and yet there’s a unity of purpose to their music, doubtless as a result of a decade or more of developing a mutual understanding. Like E.S.T., they’re good at creating moods, although without quite the sweeping intensity and depth of tone that made the Swedes at their best such an exciting unit.
Foran’s liking for dampened keyboard patterns worked well with Parker’s generation of electro-acoustic rhythms, especially on the appealingly fidgety Semi Quasars and the punchy Reverie of Lack, and elsewhere hints of Latin American influences and more pronounced gospel grooviness caught the ear.
With shrewd programming they saved their best till the end, closing with the bouncy Five, which conversely gets Known-Unknown off to an energetic, catchy start but here earned enthusiastic applause from those who, despite a lengthy interval, stuck around to hear an enjoyable second set.
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