Recorded in a week back in 2020, ‘Outside’ is a brief burst from a stellar trio has thankfully now made it into the daylight. Swiss pianist Malcolm Braff, the project’s convener, is a player whose become renowned for his experimentation and eclecticism since emerging onto the Euro Jazz scene some twenty years ago. Born in Rio, where his father was a missionary, Braff has lived in Cape Verde and Senegal, experiences which fed the deep rhythmic focus of his music. With Austrian drummer Lukas König and bassist/ producer Petter Eldh as his trio partners that dimension was always going to be probed and pushed further. As Braff puts it in the sleeve notes working with these two “masters of rhythm” was always going to be an intriguing “conversation’.
Opener Vienese Grøt à la Berlinaise may jokingly suggest a soup in the title but this is no simmering mash-up. Braff begins with a brief melodic dance, almost baroque, then König rolls in, upping the dynamics with a ratcheting broken beat, all snare snaps and galvanised crashes. The main piano theme fuses onto the angular rhythms and the trio become one, powerful and locomotive. At one point Braff chords thrust repeatedly, Eldh’s top notes flicker in rapid staccato and König’s funky shunts pummel encouragement. It’s miraculous that nothing flies free from the trio’s thrilling kinetic bursts.
Track one done, you’re left breathless but still curious for more. 3TOES tunes in further to the fundamental interdependency of the trio. Eldh and Braff are at the forefront for this short piece, the bass lines twanging and burring insistently while the piano zips between note flutters and jabbing Monk-like chords. Their intense dialogue is coaxed by König’s kit work, a complex gearing of chimes, hi-hat hisses and rimshots.
Eldh has made his own recent excursions into rhythm-centric sounds with his two ‘Projekt Drums’ albums, where he worked with Richard Spaven and James Maddren amongst others. With this trio though the approach feels even more daring, close to the experimental potency of his Koma Saxo quintet. The new grouping also reflects the broad focus König takes in his solo work which integrates electronics and improvised percussive materials with his kit work. On ‘Outside’ such sound treatments add otherworldly atmospherics to wild post-bop flamenco swagger of the final track Crémines, where the trio’s code-scrambling interplay hits telepathic levels.
The longest track on the album, Cycle is on the surface the most conventionally structured but there are still plenty of the tiro’s discreet disruptions. It’s a piece with an early EST clarity and melodic swell, the slower pace emphasising Braff’s beautifully layered chord patterns. The tune ebbs and flows, at one point a ticking hi-hat and Braff’s occasional comments leaving Eldh’s sonorous bass to meander soulfully. Steering naturally towards a delicate piano meditation, Cycle closes eerily with a murmur of abstract notes and the rumble of monotone.
‘Outside’ certainly steps away from expected piano trio tropes. There is no obvious lead taken instead the players hone in on generating collective pulsations. The group’s spark comes from their intuitive reactions to the switchback time changes and the multi-weave of cross rhythms they generate. At times it’s edge of your seat stuff with enough dynamic tension crackling through each of the four tracks to stretch over a longer album. Still hopefully sometime soon Braff, Eldh and König will reconvene to continue their indispensable rhythmic conversations.
Get your copy of ‘Outside‘ by Braff/Eldh/König from your local record store or contact Unit Records HERE
