JOHN EDWARDS: double bass
JOHN BUTCHER: tenor & soprano saxophones
MARK SANDERS: percussion

Released on Relative Pitch records

"These three hugely experienced British improvisers have played together in various duo formations and other groups over the years. but, strangely enough, this is their first ever trio date. With players of this calibre — all working at the very pinnacle of European improv — it hardly matters: the level of rapport and collective virtuosity is astonishing, as the trio negotiates rapidly transforming moodscapes with attentive and playful creativity.

While there's often a bullish energy at work — particularly when Butcher plays tenor — the improvisations effectively steer clear of any predictable free-jazz tropes, largely thanks to the extended techniques that lie at the heart of all three musicians’ lexicons: Butcher's tightly controlled trills, whistles and wispy overblowing; Edwards’ thick-fingered, globular plucks and porcine arco snorks; Sanders’ miniature pings and rattles and Papyrus brush shuffles.

Veering from punchy confrontation to breath-held spacious emptiness via distant rumble-gong-shimmer, each track — the longest clocking in at nearly 18 minutes — contains more ideas than most other bands’ entire albums."
Jazzwise - Daniel Spicer