Feeding The Machine

Binker Golding and Moses Boyd introduced themselves as a duo with 2015s award-winning Dem Ones. They followed with the double-length Journey to the Mountain of Forever in 2017, which showcased the duo as part of a sextet with saxophonist Evan Parker, drummer Yusef Dayes, trumpeter Byron Wallen, and harpist Tori Handsley. Two live offerings -- Alive in the East? and Escape the Flames -- followed before the duo went on informal hiatus to concentrate on their own projects. Feeding the Machine reflects a restless group persona. Theyve enlisted Max Luthert on live loops and electronics. While that may seem unconventional (their earlier albums are rooted in analog aesthetics and technologies), Lutherts contribution enhances their improvised sound immeasurably. At over 11 minutes, opener "Asynchronous Intervals" offers evidence of the music-making process as organic and immediate at the same time. Luthert builds out of and onto the duos core sounds, offering modular reconfigurations of the tenor saxophone that are gauzily ethereal. Golding emerges minimally, layering looped melodies on top of one another. When Boyd joins him, its with warm, rounded tom-toms and stark kick drums. As his rolls and fills become more pronounced, Golding starts moaning and wailing through the horn and the track lifts off into focused cacophony. Cymbals, snares, and kick drums introduce "Accelerometer Overdose," framing Goldings halting low register on tenor. He leans into Lutherts loops and reverb, then unspools a circular, multi-layered vamp onto which Boyd grafts hip-hop and rock rhythms. Halfway through, it becomes an anthemic exercise amid squalling harmonics and deeply funky polyrhythms. On "Feed Infinite, its almost impossible to identify the sound coming from Goldings horn as a saxophone. Boyd moves underneath it, adding jagged trap beats and instinctive syncopation, and Golding unfurls an exotic melody in layered loops one phrase at a time. Boyds masterful drumming takes center stage as Golding frames it in glorious melodic invention. "After the Machine Settles" emerges with muted electronics -- dubby, glitchy, and jittery. Golding enters at full power. He criss-crosses blues, post-bop, and free jazz, then circles back as Boyd begins dropping massive funk vamps and breaks. Closer "Because Because" finds Goldings tenor sounding like a distant foghorn. He wedges in a sonorous soprano horn as Luthert manipulates the bridge that their harmony creates. Boyd dances across his snares with his fluttering circular brushwork adding movement, space, and texture. Here, the group sounds like Jon Hassell in trio with John Coltrane and Burial. Feeding the Machine is a giant leap forward. The focus on deeply intuitive, sophisticated improvisation integrated with Lutherts instinctive, tasteful electronics is welcoming, adventurous, and abundantly creative. ~ Thom Jurek