Triple Blind: Cold Walk

A lot of beautiful, ugly, and—more than anything—middling music was made during the pandemic. In the first camp we might lump Triple Blind, whose remotely recorded, self-titled debut EP was defined by the isolation of its players. So for its follow-up, the quartet appear at pains to underline the shared space and interpersonal interaction that birthed its debut long-player Cold Walk; the LP inner sleeve is an old-school collage of black and white studio imagery. 

The group is described as a collective, but multi-reedist Kyle Nasser clearly sets the tone, contributing the whole repertoire, a brief interlude aside, although one might hope to chalk up its freakier moments to collective invention. This may explain the sense of tension between his knotty compositions, which define much of the record's early run, and the freer, more heavily improvised second side. Or, one might imagine: between the individual and the whole. 

You might wonder if the tracks appear in the order they were recorded, as there is a definitive sense of unravelling, relaxing and letting go as the set progresses, from the tightly-composed prologue "Bask," to the spiralling closer "Yard Spin." The former is a brief, beatless tone poem of tense harmonies, fulfilling a similar focus-resetting role as the Hermeto Pascoal interludes on Miles Davis' Live Evil. The latter dissolves into a flurry of spiralling, Middle Eastern wails on wooden flute, the record's mildly frenzied climax. It is about as fiery as things get here; if the music's less-inhibited moments never heat beyond a mild simmer, then its more considered moments are served delicately on ice. The best example is the pure balladry of "Song for Zayn," marked by a mourning melody of great beauty, before breaking into a sparse bass solo from Nick Jost, over haunting Rhodes keys, so subtle it hurts. 

And you might wish at times that they would let go sooner. Introducing the second side—and at seven minutes long the most extensive piece on a restless album of fleeting vignettes—the soaring head of "Move Still" unfolds over a restlessly descending progression, before an almost headbanging breakdown leads into a stellar sax solo, arguably Nasser's crowning moment. The other contender is "Chaotic Eyes," whose head-scratching fusion-ish hook gives way to a smartly sparse soprano sax solo, soaring through jarring electro synth harmonies, recalling '80s Wayne Shorter. Throughout Cold Walk, the sense of restraint feels deliberate. The vinyl is mastered cool and little leaps out of the speakers are especially apparent in the off-the-cuff sparring of "Sketchy Invention," a highly rhythmic workout in which the drums and bass often feel sonically sidelined. 

This feels deliberate. After all, this is subtle and intelligent mood-setting music, which makes such efforts not to grab or jolt the listener, yet may be destined to pass by as hip background music for many. That would be a shame indeed.