Vijay Iyer: Thereupon

Imagine for a moment that there existed a time when every individual had the chance to express themselves with just keyboards, drums, and horns. What cacophony would ensue? What revelations would be unleashed? What new politics would free one and all? Now imagine said individuals were blessed with the singular and coalescing powers and talents alive in Fieldwork—alto-saxophonist Steve Lehman, pianist Vijay Iyer, and drummer Tyshawn Sorey —and you have the trio's second, concussive and confrontational opus Thereupon.

First assembled on the tensely rhapsodic Door (Pi Recordings, 2008), this particular iteration of Fieldwork—saxophonist Aaron Stewart and drummer Elliot Humberto Kavee have played their keen, creative parts in an earlier incarnation—finds fellow MacArthur Fellows Iyer, Sorey and Guggenheim Fellow Lehman pursuing a soundtrack of knotty evolution; a switchback of muscle, marvel, and (thankfully) profoundly little restraint.

As a fusillade of rapid fire explosions leaves those within earshot to gather the shrapnel, Thereupon busts open with "Propaganda," a two-minute rush of everything before and after whatever came first. Iyer and Sorey are especially manic and will remain so for most of the gig. Iyer is possessed on the frantically insidious "Embracing Difference," a five-minute crusher kickboxing gravity. The jaunty insistence of "Evening Right." The blisters left after "Fire City" torches its wide swath.

"Domain," the fifth onslaught of a wholesome nine, sweeps up all remaining blueprints of compliance and blows them out the hatchway. Iyer and Sorey get back in the ring as Lehman referees. Lehman's slippery "Fantome" is a funky posit wherein Iyer billows and rings on his Rhodes while Sorey and Lehman engage in an opening statement any jury would be swayed by. The summarizing and cataclysmic title track that, by sheer force of the collective will, does not burst into a full-blown overture to some newly discovered opera, bashing about with a proto-punkish fury. The sparring, deceiving angularities of "Astral." Iyer fires up the Rhodes again for the closing "The Night Before." Lehman sounds like swarms of butterflies in the sun. But soon the track turns dark as his alto's lower tones pull Iyer's electronics and Sorey's otherworld whispers into the void, emerging hard and resplendent, like Weather Report back in the day. Put simply, Thereupon is a pinnacle work for three masters.

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