Label: Self released, 2025
Personnel - Sarah Kramer: trumpet, flugelhorn, effects, percussion and sounds, voice; Joe Berardi: drums, percussion, electronics and sounds; Jorge Calderón: bass and percussion.
Royal Flux, an experimental trio based in Los Angeles, features trumpeter Sarah Kramer, bassist Jorge Calderón, and drummer-percussionist Joe Berardi, who also handles electronics. Their debut album, Fluxuations, embraces an uncluttered aesthetic where cool, unfussy trumpet lines float above coherently woven rhythmic designs and bass-driven grooves. Entirely improvised across 14 tracks, the album balances ambient textures, soft funk spirit, and avant-garde exploration in an elegant package.
The title track, “Fluxuations”, opens as a laid-back, jazzy funk journey propelled by a cyclic eight-beat bass groove, shimmering electronics, and Kramer’s exploratory trumpet, reminiscent of Miles Davis’ spacious phrasing. “Kinda Red” shifts into a trippy dance-rock mood, its syncopated drum flux morphing with kinetic spontaneity. On “Pulsations”, bass and drums stride in funky unison while a delay-treated trumpet ripples above in waves of suspended motion. Leaning on the avant-garde, “Static Grind” ventures into industrial territory, its thrashing mechanical rhythm setting an oppressive base for sharp trumpet lines and spare, cerebral bass counterpoints.
If Cinematic Orchestra comes to mind on many tracks, the fusion-era spirit of Don Cherry and Miles Davis’ are present on “Meteor Down”, where placid trumpet lines hover above groovy, ruminatively funky bass and brushed percussion. The free-flowing “Miles Shorter” nods directly to Davis and Wayne Shorter through unceremonious trumpet bursts and conversational interplay, while “Shadow Lake” channels Nils Petter Molvær’s ambient minimalism tinged with Latin and blues hues. On “Slow Swirl”, busy drum thwacks and solid yet breathable bass lines turn into a hypnotic mantric prayer.
Though the trio occasionally leans on recurring formulas and we could ask for a bit more variety in the process, the evolving details that distinguish each track reveal themselves gradually with repeated listening. Fluxuations captures a levitating collective sound—methodical, imaginative, and quietly transformative.
Favorite Tracks:
01 - Fluxuations ► 04 - Kinda Red ► 10 - Static Grind