Fieldwork - Door

Pi

Academic intimations abound in this ensemble's name and sound. An immersive element exists in their music borne from an omnivorous approach to folding in influences. It’s reminiscent of the trained anthropologist who dives into a disparate cultural setting in order to glean new insights about his or her own. From the opening track “Of”, it’s clear that these three are working out a complex communal lexicon, at once familiar and fresh. Saxophonist Steve Lehman studied under Braxton at Wesleyan. His solo projects since have emphasized a similar praxis-directed approach with an alto voice that recalls the puckered-tone punch of Jackie McLean among others. Pianist Vijay Iyer favors a comparable systems-minded approach on his albums, merging layered motivic parcels into mutable frameworks. Drummer Tyshawn Sorey, the relative new recruit for this release, is a human tool and die dynamo, his stuttering polyrhythms referencing facets of electronica and hip-hop and sounding almost machine-sequenced in their speed and precision. His command of complex metrics matches the Iyer’s rhythmic and harmonic dexterity and together they create an impressively waterproof weave. Lehman is just as astute on alto, threading sharp melodic hooks into a mathematical interplay that stresses collective construction over individual primacy.

The puzzle-piece congruity of the ensemble processes is often startling, recalling the experiments of Greg Osby and Steve Coleman, at least in spirit if not absolute letter. In the context of such demanding structures, there’s a very real danger of coming off as overly insular or stylized, but the three largely circumvent such constrictive concerns. Lehman moves freely from instigator to leavening agent, firing off staccato bursts or tempering into porous legato drawls. The absence of bass amplifies the music’s angularity and despite Sorey’s dazzling technique the starkness of the interplay is sometimes jarring. Loop-drawn rhythms replace any kind of conventional linear momentum. Sorey’s patterns resemble a casino wheel spinning at high velocity, his accents approximating the metallic ball jumping between number slots. Iyer varies the weight and direction of his own contributions through adroitly textured pedal sustains. The moody ballad “Cycle I” slows the action down to a crawl and consequently opens it up, revealing the model’s viability at any speed. The academic trappings of the trio are hard to miss, but Fieldwork is far from an armchair enterprise. These three players are all about getting its hands dirty in the service of risky in-the-moment music.

~ Derek Taylor