Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, Patrick Shiroishi ‎– Speak, Moment

“Harrington/Jaffe/Shiroishi are an experimental music trio from Los Angeles. The group works at a cross section of avant-garde, ambient, electronic, post-hardcore, and free jazz, but is not really any of those things. The group embraces a fully improvised ethos, with each performance and recording balancing intention with malleability to render specific moments in time and space into a growing body of spontaneous musical conversation. Following 2024’s debut Speak, Moment – which captured the very first meeting of the trio – Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, and Patrick Shiroishi reunite for a multidimensional record that goes deeper into the many navigable musical territories suggested by its predecessor. The result, Making Colors, quietly stands among these three prolific musicians’ best work. Making Colors is a carousel of hypnotic rhythms swung into avant-garde jazz, pairing fragile melodic movements with maximalist fervor. While lengthy stretches of the record are decidedly mellow – soft cymbal hits, a cooing sax, gentle guitar work – the record also contains a rollicking twin of free expression juxtaposed throughout. The record’s A-Side is punctuated as four distinct movements over a single take and is driven by this twinned energy. It also reflects a mission statement of sorts for the group’s approach to improvisation and life; while each movement stands on its own, they collectively triumph in the company of their neighbors. The record’s B-Side further distills the emboldened trio’s approach across three distinct movements reflecting a growing embrace of the sonic vacuum that electronic music depends on (the loop-oriented “need buy in”), a heaviness that the trio’s 2024 live record Zebulon! unlocked (lead single “FRACTAL HASH”), and an outstretched and unhurried melodic ambience (the 12-minute album closer “trackerKeeper”). Movements gather texture; melodies yearn from Harrington’s guitar and find their companions in electronic sputters filling the cracks in Jaffe’s drum kit; Shiroishi’s magisterial sax passionately cries out and whispers in coded bits and bytes; the alchemy of this trio bends time to create a new musical language. In their ever-evolving performances, the overlapping timelines of each musician build into a dense and kinetic chorus that retains its nuance as it grows in immensity.”

Label: AKP Recordings – AKP026-1

Format: Vinyl, LP, Album

Country: US

Released: 2024

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