Jeff Platz / Max Goldman / Brendan Carniaux: With Orbit

If we had to categorize the sounds of Jeff Platz, Max Goldman, and Brendan Carniaux, we might call it sneaky music. Not sneaky as in deceitful, more like wily or sly. Partly composed, mostly improvised, With Orbit trades in the art of sleight of hand. For instance the opening track "Lost To History" leads off with a bit of a funk groove via Platz's raucous guitar before Carniaux's saxophone counters with some outward bounding notes and Goldman turns his pulse into a thundering footslog. Before too long the trio has pulverized the sound into huge chunks of noise. Dazed from those body blows, the following track "Schirm" opts for a quieter, chamber-like approach with Carniaux switching to clarinet and Goldman working brushes on cymbals while Platz delivers the gentlest of notes. Onward the music climbs. "Vanish Mode" both builds gossamer layers of sound while tearing the same apart with the composition's momentum.

Listeners of Platz's music are accustomed to this left-handed approach with music he has made with Joe Morris, Daniel Carter, Stephen Haynes, and Luther Gray. He expands his guitar with electronics, always bringing new sounds and approaches to a session. "Throughout Always" opens with the sound of downed power lines sizzling with that snap and crackle of electricity, while saxophone low-moan is egged on by swift brush work. A dislocated funk emerges from "The Vulgar Crowd" after some ghostly saxophone and guitar haunt a jangle of metal clash. Each track seems to change course to the benefit of the listener, even the pacific touch of "Irreversible," which gently walks us hand-in-hand into green meadows, ends with a thunderstorm.