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Aidan Baker et al — Trio Not Trio series (Gizeh)

It’s not as if collaboration over distance wasn’t a thing before March 2020 (it very comfortably and significantly predates the Internet, for one thing), but it quickly became a lockdown (and post-lockdown) truism that COVID accelerated and to some degree normalized that form of collaboration. Nadja’s Aidan Baker already had a lengthy track record of teaming up with all sorts of other artists (both solo and in is his duo with Leah Buckareff), and when everything changed he’d already been contemplating doing a series of trios. A live performance? An installation? When any sort of everyone-in-one-room affair quickly became impossible for the foreseeable future, the idea got adapted into the Trio Not Trio series, which combines both in-person and remote playing with a number of different collaborators, casting a wide net and then creating a series of groups with Baker and two other musicians. For each, Baker and one partner would get together in the studio, work improvisationally, and then send the tapes to the third to add what they would; then each set of recordings were tweaked and rearranged slightly so that all five came in at around an hour apiece.

Even the number of instalments is a mark of the project’s success; Baker originally planned on three trios and got so many positive responses he had to expand. Baker plays guitar throughout and always includes a drummer, but sought to recruit differing instrumentation for the last spot. Each Trio Not Trio release has track names corresponding to the ordinal numbers matching the position of the tracks (so first, second, third, etc.) translated into a different language; the album titles also take this pattern (so first, second, third, etc. but in different languages). Befitting the wide range of playing styles, genres and backgrounds that all of the collaborators brought to the series, the results are varied enough it’s worth looking at each entry in turn.

Yn Gyntaf

Welsh for “firstly,” the initial entry in the series features Oneida drummer John Colpitts (aka Man Forever) and vocalist Stacy Taylor (aka Sarff). It’s also the only one where the drummer of the trio wasn’t the one present for the initial recording. Colpitts is a powerhouse and Taylor’s wordless singing packs its own punch, but for the first five of the seven tracks here, the trio keeps things spectral and foreboding. It’s only when Baker’s guitar splits open the beginning of “Chweched” with two tracks to go that all that potential energy is converted into roiling catharsis (admittedly those two tracks do cover a solid half hour between them). Both halves work well on their own, but the collision of the two is the strongest part of Yn Gyntaf, suggesting the series’ reluctance to settle into one predictable mode even on a trio-by-trio basis.

The second instalment brings in My Disco drummer Rohan Rebeiro and baritone saxophonist Sofía Salvo. All three play this hour loose, spacey and abstract, with all instruments frequently making sounds pretty far away from their standard expressions. Whether it’s the sparse, alien, clicking and droning soundscape of “Primeras (Pts I y II),” the prowling baritone sax haunting “Cuarto,” or the slowly accruing damage of the closing “Septimo,” it is immediately clear that each group is going to bring very different sensibilities and possibilities to the work.

Trzecia

Baker frequently works in various genres in and adjacent to heavy metal, and fans of that side of his work might have their ears perk up seeing that Trzecia brings in Khanate/Insect Ark drummer Tim Wyskida and Pinkish Black’s Daron Beck on keyboards. “Pierwsza” isn’t very brutal at all though, starting with Wyskida’s skittering taps, Beck adding graceful piano accents, and Baker mostly staying subliminal/droning. It’s the closest the series comes to sounding like, say, the Necks. Most of the hour stays in this kind of exploratory mood, with Wyskida frequently leading the way. Only on the closing sixteen minutes of “Szósta” does the hammer come down, Baker and Beck grinding in tandem while Wyskida propels them.

Yonbanme

The fourth entry also includes the series’ second singer in the form of Ayami Suzuki (who also provides electronics), as well as journeyman drummer Tobias Humble. Whereas on Yn Gyntaf Stacy Taylor’s voice was central, giving an element for the listener to follow through the hour, here Suzuki often hangs back, with her voice almost merging with the wash of sound on the ethereal “Nibanme” for example. But then on the more heavily layered title track she also provides the closest thing the series has to discernible lyrics (good luck transcribing them though). The instalment with the fewest tracks (five) and so the longest average track times, Yonbanme may be the only trio to (almost) replicate the instrumental setup of a previous one, but that only highlights how distinctly each collaborator adds to the proceedings.

Letzte

The title here is “last” (not “fifth”) in German, and for the closing trio Baker brings in Berlin’s Jana Sotzko (Point No Point, others) on drums and Melissa Guion (aka MJ Guider) on guitar/bass/electronics. As you might expect from the rest of the series, that setup does not mean we are about to get anything at all like a conventional power trio. Guion frequently laces Baker and Sotzko’s in-the-room interplay with drifting atmospherics, from the gradual haze of “Erste” to the cavernous echoes of “Fünfte.” The closing title track sends the whole project off with a fuzzy, surging valediction, a fittingly satisfying end for a project that demonstrated significant sonic and emotional range within the various modulations of a deliberately specific format. Maybe Trio Not Trio could have five-not-five entries someday?

Ian Mathers

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