Pink Dolphins

As Anteloper, the duo of trumpeter jaimie branch and drummer Jason Nazary make a synth-adorned, groove-heavy kind of subaquatic free jazz, leaning into structural improvisation and generous application of strange electronic sounds. For Pink Dolphins, branch and Nazary expanded both their stylistic range and textural depth, bringing in guitarist/producer Jeff Parker to go through hours of recordings and sculpt sketches and improvisations into songs. The five pieces that make up Pink Dolphins take multiple adventurous approaches but all congeal into a unified flow, glued together with bubbly, psychedelic synthesizers and Parkers extraterrestrial processing. Opening track "Inia" is a hypnotic current of deep bass and lopsided drums treated with short, stuttering delay to create new layers of rhythm. As soon as the groove is established, branchs trumpet washes over the track in various crests of organic and effected sound. "Baby Bota Halloceanation" is similar, with trumpet, drums, and spare electronics floating in a spacious, liquid sound field. Tracks like these come across like a far less crowded reading of Big Fun-era Miles that got remixed by Drexciya, exchanging claustrophobic intensity for a vastness that reflects either the ocean floor or deep space. While branchs looping, meditative vocals on "Earthlings" add a semblance of form to the album, they dont take away from the murky quality that seeps from every moment of Pink Dolphins, with her voice growing more effected and alien as the lyrics repeat over and over. The submerged space jazz that Anteloper creates here with Parkers help is more specific than it seems upon first listen. Nazary and branchs locked-in musical chemistry provides a very human core for the project, which just becomes more futuristic and fantastical as they play with the results, creating something not just otherworldly but their own brand of underwater psychedelic science fiction. ~ Fred Thomas