Label: Sunnyside Records, 2020
Personnel - Ben Monder: guitar; Tony Malaby: tenor and soprano saxophones; Tom Rainey: drums.
Theoretically, if you have the outstanding guitarist Ben Monder, the inquisitive saxophonist Tony Malaby and the idiosyncratic drummer Tom Rainey playing in the same group, the music has to be awesome. That prognostic is confirmed on this fully-improvised recording captured live last year at the iconic New York venue 55 Bar. The immersive session consists of a long-form three-part suite so-called 3320, which alludes to the date it was performed, March 3rd, 2020.
The finely structured piece takes us to the musicians' recondite and enigmatic sonic world, where light and darkness nail down a deal. Developed with extraordinary intuition, the moods are predominantly foreboding but also catchily obsessive, overcast with gravitas and power alike.
Monder infuses the chorded passages with perplexing sounds and colors, sometimes soaring in suspension with short bursts of light after rising from the occult and the underground. Malaby is often expansive and infectious in his subterranean statements, which sometimes take the form of agonizing, full-throated growls. The tempo is not what certainly matters here, and Rainey is pleased about that, given that he always appreciated freedom and keeps breathing freedom in his playing. His mindfulness and balance help keep things together, whether his rhythmic patchwork is infused with snare drum swirls that cut like knives, high-strung pulses of considerable complexity, or sensitive brushwork that underlines space as opposed to density.
The first part of the suite runs for nearly 17 minutes; the second lasts over 29; and the third, keeping the close interplay but delivered with speed and stamina, adds about 15 minutes more for a total of one whole hour of music. While navigating a marvel of harmonic rivers and unique textures, the group embraces free improvisation with occasional goth and doom metal influences, and the constant ebb and flow in their explorations contribute for a gray state of incertitude and amazement.
Grade A-
Favorite Tracks:
02 - Suite 3320: Part II ► 03 - Suite 3320: Part III