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