Label: Intakt Records, 2021

Personnel - Stephan Crump: acoustic bass; Kris Davis: piano; Eric McPherson: drums.

The Borderlands Trio is made of three inventive musicians - Stephan Crump on double bass, Kris Davis on piano and Eric McPherson on drums - who explore freely without any genre constraints or forcing moods. Their new outing on Intakt, Wandersphere, is a double disc with four improvised pieces recorded in New York during the 2020 pandemic. The group expands views with purely instinctive spontaneity, assuring that their music flows even more naturally (no editing) than on their debut album Asteroidea (Intakt, 2017).

“Super-Organic” quietly gets shape through clever cymbal layouts, relentless bowed bass and a gorgeously atmospheric pianism that benefits from Davis’ attentive preparation of her instrument. The piece segues into some ostinato-driven passages before entering a magical ballroom where mutable grooves join both the cascading and entangling piano. The trio accomplishes wonders and everything fits in the right place, even when Crump’s fingers glide in exploration of higher registers with Davis assuming the bass lines. The gamelan-like sounds of the prepared piano contribute a strong African feel to the concluding vamp.

Crump says: “the goal of the trio is to offer and receive simultaneous, relinquishing as much ego as possible.” This spirit is felt throughout the album, and the 41-minute “Old-Growth” has a lot to be discovered, evolving from being lyrical to consciously vague and exploratively jazzy to offering hypnotic cadences that could have been inspired by or be transported to electronic music. After insinuating a lopsided swing over which Davis delivers some pure jazz phrases, there’s this intimate arco bass expression, surrounded by exotic sounds, that progresses with spiritual development.

“An Invitation to Disappear” conveys this inescapable sense of being trapped in a bubble of solvent molecules, but soon veers to a kinetic, rock-inspired thrust, probing grooves that are as much complex as they are relatable and assimilable. There is tremendous tension at certain times, which are slightly eased on the buoyant “Possible Futures”, another copious outpouring of ostinatos, grooves and other ideas that fully cohere.

Imaginative and inspiring, the Borderlands Trio extemporizes with grand musical gestures and sweeping elegance.