Sydney-based trio Moving Paths are comprised of Linus Foley (synths, piano), Max Alduca (electric & double bass), and Luke Keanan-Brown (drums, electronics), and over the last four years they’ve developed a chamber jazz ensemble approach that’s been compared to the likes of the ECM label, whilst also forming links with Sydney’s NowNow experimental music scene.
A few months on from the release of Moving Paths’ debut album ‘Dusk’ on Hellosquare, this latest download-only single ‘Wake / Drift’ offers up two new tracks recorded by the trio earlier this year in collaboration with label boss Shoeb Ahmad. ‘Wake’ opens things gently at first, as delicate piano keys slowly unfurl, tracing a minimalist and slightly tentative path against distant sub-aquatic sounding electronics, only for the emergence of double-bass notes to heighten the sense of tension before crashing free-jazz drums and distortion drag things off into atonal chaos.
By contrast, ‘Drift’ spends its six minutes building up a far more slowburning sense of atmosphere, and is all the better for it, as glimmering keys and lulling bass pulses provide a warm soundbed for clattering percussive found sounds and muted cymbal crashes, the winding melody line that rises to the forefront almost suggesting Popol Vuh’s psychedelic / krautrock ambience as glittering electronics trail at the very edges. Well worth exploring.
