Svaboda / O'Connor / Green: Time Together / Time Apart

It is hard not be taken aback by the sonorous study undertaken by the peerless trio of double bassist Helen Svoboda, pianist Joe O'Connor and drummer Tim Green on their organically collective and communicative Time Together, Time Apart.

Like watching the ocean, "A Beginning" scans the immediate calm surface, expanding your vision out towards the horizon. The conversation is warm, the camaraderie instinctual. Svoboda's architectural design for "A Proposition" barely holds O'Connor's fidgeting spins and Green's hot pursuit. The miasmatic "Doubts" speaks broadly to each player's vulnerabilities and concerns, with a classical in structure until it falls under the spell of the blues, "Time Together" rushes and rides, the trio apace with the onrush of ideas and anticipation. Here once again Svoboda's innate hyper-kineticism underpins Green and O'Connor's fast chatter.

The tender infrastructure of "A Moment Alone" makes for deeper, quiet listening via the shadows conjured by Svoboda's emotional bowing. O'Connor's understated themes and Green's ghostly whispers and rumbles sound like a private seance. The rustling "Time Apart" serves as a testimony to each player's improvisatory individualism and the need to collaborate, no matter the miles apart. (In 2019, when the trio convened in to create Time Together, Time Apart in Australia, they had only played together a handful of times and were scattered across the globe from Melbourne to New York). The aptly titled "An Ending" consummates the trio's innate desire to communicate, not only with themselves but also with the world at large.