"An arbitrary succession of more or less irritating sounds"

Tuesday, 14 October 2008

Seven days of Doris



Not exactly post-jazz, post-pop or post-rock but some rich & often intensely satisfying, deeply jazz-infused brew of all three, E.S.T. ended with abrupt tragedy this summer

The earlier albums (like Strange Place for Snow, Winter in Venice, Good Morning Susie Soho From Gagarin's Point of View) usually seem the best. But today's 45-minute freebie retrospective shows that the trio's intensity, rhythmic inventiveness & playful ear were all still intact later (though some lightness of touch seems to have fallen away) - as was their unfailing talent for the clunking, trying-too-hard title...

Shame that, despite their reputation for broadening the boundaries of the jazz trio with the occasional squeal of feedback (most of it as clumsy, if well intentioned, as their titling), they never put their music in radically different hands. A Triosk-style collaboration with someone like Jelinek would have genuinely challenged & updated their sound. It still could...




Image by Jim Rakete, from Natural Selections

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