Triage: Premium Plastics

Triage's music supplies a groove with more of a nod toward European improvised music than to bebop. Tim Daisy handles the percussion duties like a quiet Han Bennink and Dave Rempis' horn invites comparisons to Eric Dolphy and Anthony Braxton. While the music here is improvisational, each piece maintains a solid compositional structure and the players sustain a stoicism to their approach. Not that Rempis doesn't let fly on the 19-minute "Spasm," but his outward blowing never risks the possibility of becoming out-of-control. Likewise Daisy never bashes, just to bash. He is given plenty of room here for drum solos, which draw from jazz and non-jazz time references. Bassist Ajemian opens "Fellini's Blues" with a bass heartbeat that becomes a melancholy solo in the moving texture of Rempis' horn and Daisy's thumb piano. "Maschine Man" starts out like a maschine (sic), with each player stamping out regular notes only to decline into bits of deconstructed textures.

Triage is quite adept at using space within their music. Generous pauses, Ajemian's bowing, and Rempis' patient saxophone work adds up to a thoroughly coherent statement. The players offer a concentrated moody textured music, a perfect soundtrack for these post-September 11 days.

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