Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash, Tony Orrell: Lifeline

New bottles, same wine? On Lifeline, Pat Thomas, Dominic Lash and Tony Orrell, who operate under the moniker Bley School with acoustic instruments, convene in the studio with electronics. The trio's defining traits—deep listening, volatility and reflexive interaction—persist, but now unfold through circuitry rather than strings and skins. Furthermore, in place of the covers favored in their parallel incarnation, they dispense with lead sheets and leap into the unknown. As a result agency blurs in sometimes opaque collages of ricocheting beeps, jagged slashes and hi-tech abrasion.

Although primarily known as a jazz and improvising pianist, notably with Ahmed, Thomas has long explored electronics as far back as 1989 on Monads (Reel Estate, 2009) as well as on the Derek Bailey-led Company '91 (Incus, 1994) recordings. Erstwhile bassist Lash, who works extensively with saxophonist John Butcher, clarinetist-guitarist Alex Ward and pianist Alexander Hawkins, uncases his electric guitar, while Orrell, who frequently accompanies reed man Paul Dunmall, here switches to electric drums. The shift is not cosmetic; it recasts the trio's conversational method into a more unstable, textural exchange.

The opening "Lifeline 1" stands out for the way the glitchy layers cohere, as one noise seems to answer another in a loosely rhythmic haze. Other high points regularly emerge when the density thins, often at Orrell's instigation, promoting spare, aerated space which reveals the trio's inner workings. Conversely on "Lifeline 3" his juiced-up churn gives a noticeable propulsive kick to the digital sparks, while on "Lifeline 5" his bristling energetic clatter catalyzes Thomas' stabbing percussive patterns. Elsewhere some of the untethered intersections recall Sun Ra's Moog freak-outs at their most feral. 

Only in the closing stretch does Orrell succumb to drum machine tropes, propelling the detonations of off-white noise and android jangle towards the far horizon, proving the truism that anything sounds good over a groove. Paul Bley dabbled with synthesizers in the 1970s. What might happen if this plugged-in line up tackled the Bley School repertoire?