Following the stunning debut album "Asteroida", the New York
trio Borderlands with Stephan Crump, Kris Davis and Eric
McPherson release a double CD with four improvisations which
range in length from just under twenty to over forty minutes.
Recorded during the coronavirus pandemic in New York in 2020,
the music contrasts the New York mood of isolation with an
uncommon passion for playing, intensity and musical intimacy.
Chicago/Berlin jazz critic Peter Margasak writes in the liner notes:
"The works float, roil, swing, breathe, rush, and sparkle without
every revealing any sort of hesitation or falling into a rut. The
musicians don't follow one another and they eschew glib reaction.
Instead, they sit with the flowing ideas, thinking ahead about
where the music could go. They play a long game with their spontaneity.
These four amazing explorations reflect a kind of total
music." He writes full of enthusiasm: "The Borderlands Trio
engage in four mind-boggling explorations here - patiently,
generously, and almost telepathically building a unified sonic
architecture that celebrates the act of collective improvisation as
profoundly, as beautifully, and as completely as anything I've ever
heard." McPherson turned 50 on the day of the session, and calls
the experience "the ultimate birthday gift."