During the last two months, I’ve seen each of these expert soundscapists breed the kind of outcast poetics that electrifies a room. The chemistry of filtering forceful dissonance, negative space, expressionist blare, keen abstraction, and random skronkery through a three-way prism is chancy indeed, but on 2010’s Paradoxical Frog, pianist Davis, drummer Sorey, and saxophonist Laubrock have a firm grip on roiling exposition. And yes, they hop all over the place. From the whams to the whispers, it’s pretty damn captivating.
Jim Macnie