Akchoté/Foussat/Turner - Acid Rain

Eyal Hareuveni, AllAboutJazz

This free improvised meeting between prolific French guitarist Noël Akchoté and analog synthesizer wizard Jean-Marc Foussat, and British drummer Roger Turner is unique, and not just because of these experienced improvisers' breadth of the musical language. The trio's collective sound is a multilayered, reflecting on progressive rock in its early experimental days, muscular fusion showoffs and a timbral search in its most sophisticated form, all filtered through these musicians' mature, idiosyncratic articulations.

All three are well-versed in non-idiomatic free improvised and experimental sonic meetings. They performed together as a trio for the first time in 2006 in a tribute to the late British guitarist Derek Bailey, and reconvened last year for this recording. Akchoté brings his free-jazz, textual phrasing to this trio; Foussat his otherworldly, vintage electronic sounds; and Turner, his irregular timekeeping and highly poetic percussive colors.

The trio's ideas keep flowing, nurturing each of its members' gestures—accumulating and exploding in a powerful electric storm, only to dissolve into a new silent beginning and build slowly again until it bursts in another cathartic release. There is no clear narrative to this one, long, 45-minutes improvisation. No real beginning or clear end and no solo parts, since the trio's communication is so immediate that the music changes its course within seconds. Due to its highly inventive interplay, so free of any clichés or any conventional categorizations, the sonic outcome is fresh and intense, even in the quiet segments.

Acid Rain is a powerful document of free improvisation.