AAVD TRIO “Anti Glow” (Orb Tapes)

 

We exist in the deadening smog. AAVD Trio – Alexander Adams (drums & cymbals), Danny Andrade (tenor saxophone), and Daniel Van Duerm (electric piano, organ, and electronics), for those of you who like your acronyms defined – exists in the deadening smog, at times burdened by its claustrophobia, at others maddeningly trying to escape. See the j-card cover? The light is either trying to peek through or the sun is sucking the light back into itself because it doesn’t see the point anymore. AAVD Trio needs you to let them reach you, and they also have a tendency to allow their personal gravitation to suck the notes they play back into themselves. They do this simultaneously: ennui-cracking and point-not-seeing.
 
None of this dimestore philosophizing has any impact or bearing on the music itself. The instruments communicate with one another as if they’ve always been meant to. Van Duerm lays remarkable sonic foundations for Andrade to skip through and play around with, but it’s not until he’s bending circuits and effing with synths that you realize you’re not just listening to fusion-era-Miles Chick Corea aping. The meeting of jazz and experimental electronics can often be exhilarating, and Van Duerm, Adams, and Andrade prove as adept at breaking new ground as a dude with a shovel at a groundbreaking ceremony. Anti Glow is a rush regardless of whether it’s hurtling full throttle or pinging around on the inside of itself. Even when it’s lurching like a hungry Frankenstein’s monster, it’s got that edge of cuttingness, that wobbly connection like barely failing and then unfailing magnets are holding everything together. It’s unusual, and it’s vital. It hits a lot of pleasure centers.
 
https://orbtapes.bandcamp.com/
 
--Ryan