The Exciting Trio – In Chicago There Is Willy

482 Music 482-1023

The inept band name is surely an in-joke: far from power-trio excitement, this is hazy, laidback music in the indie-rock-meets-jazz vein. The basic format is the classic guitar trio – Matt Schneider, guitar; Griffin Rodriguez, bass; David Pavkovic, drums – but they also vary the sound with electronics, studio tweaking and the occasional creepy melodica interlude. The balance of the band is pleasantly upside-down: the drums may be clicking along nicely, but Schneider has a daydreaming, unhurried way of playing guitar that often melts into the background. Some of the tunes themselves are peppy, but the performances tend to slip into long episodes of near-suspension, and this tendency grows as the album wears on: the last track, “Lutrell”, is a blissed-out 14-minute drone piece, with Pavkovic on melodica the whole way. Though touching on the territory of a disc like Jeff Parker’s Like-Coping, In Chicago There Is Willy is mostly dreamy, slightly impersonal mood-music. Nice stuff, though not all that exciting.

~ Nate Dorward