By Nick Ostrum

Recorded dwell December 18, 2022, Stay at Café Oto London is one in all
these dwell masterpieces. I’m certain any night time this trio performed can be
enrapturing. This one, nevertheless, simply sounds particular. It begins with vitality.
Christoph Gallio barks fats alto traces (evoking Brötzmann and late Coltrane
albeit on a distinct horn) over the churning thrum that drummer Mark
Sanders and bassist Dominic Lash lay beneath him, steeped within the free
improv custom that means rhythm however solely by abandoning it for sound on
sound on sound. Then, house opens and issues get actually summary. (Lash,
for his half, has had one foot in minimalism so long as he has had one in
free jazz.) The trio then lets this opening journey for a bit, including some
embellishing scrapes and rummaging, as Sanders and Lash take over.

Gallio rejoins, or at the very least steps to the entrance, within the second monitor, ‘Wildlife-Half 2,’ a continuation slightly than clear break from ‘Wildlife –
Half 1.’  The vitality and pluck are nonetheless there, although Gallio extends his
notes just a bit longer and Lash switches to arco. Sanders performs a
little extra quietly, however nonetheless with that cluttered clatter. ‘Wildlife – Half
3’ is the departure. This has extra space, and an extended droning bass spine
at first, however ultimately falls into that the dexterous clunk and angularity
that introduces the album. The 2 components of Homelife meditate on a delicate
folky rhythm, harkening again to that Sonny-Rollins-on-a-bridge custom,
however with extra haze, distortion and serration. Then, issues begin to construct.
Then, they tumble.

Stay at Café Otois phenomenal. It’s a few of the greatest tensile
scorched-earth, time-warp 60s-rooted free improv that I’ve hear for a
lengthy whereas. That is all of the extra spectacular given the intergenerational
line-up, which pulls from a variety of aesthetic backgrounds but coheres
across the similar gravitational enter. Regardless of its many detours and
divergences over the final half century, that middle, that vivacious
custom of harnessing and directing power away from melody, concord,
tonalism, and be-bop plaiting, a type that braces the crag and stumble as
a type in itself, is alive and properly.

Stay at Café Oto London is accessible as a digital obtain from
Bandcamp and as a CD from alternative music shops all over the world. Take your decide.