Rob Price
Gutbrain Records
rob + gutbrain.com = email

2013 September 18 • Wednesday

Here's yet another great record that came out this year! It's one of the best free improv recordings I've ever heard.

It's really amazing how freely this trio—Ellery Eskelin on tenor sax, Susan Alcorn on pedal steel guitar and Michael Formanek on upright bass—plays without ever resorting to brute force or cliches. In other words, they don't get noisy or skronky and they don't go the way of louder, faster, louder, faster.

Instead they walk a tightrope of sorts, mixing melodic and harmonic ideas with textures, atmospheres and lyricism to create a spontaneous music of richness and depth. It's really wonderful.

And how often do you hear pedal steel in this kind of context? Susan Alcorn plays the instrument brilliantly and makes it her own. I hope I get a chance to see this group perform live.

Get the record!