DOX

“Drowned Circuits”

(Efpi Records – FP055 Digital Release Only)

Dee Byrne – saxophones, Oli Kuster – synths, Xavier Kaeser – drums

DOX is a new British -Swiss collaboration featuring the Anglo-Irish saxophonist and composer Dee Byrne and the Swiss musicians Oli Kuster (synths) and Xavier Kaeser (drums).

It represents a continuation of Byrne and Kuster’s trio with Swiss guitarist / banjoist Cyrille Ferrari that released the album “Motherboard Pinball” in 2021. Review here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/oli-kuster-cyrill-ferrari-dee-byrne-motherboard-pinball

The Byrne / Kuster / Ferrari trio followed this with the digital only release “Algorithmic Quotidian” (Efpi Records) in 2023, a recording I have yet to hear.

The musical partnership of Byrne and Kuster has its roots in the sextet MoonMot, another Anglo-Swiss collaboration that also includes the British musicians Cath Roberts (baritone sax), Seth Bennett (bass) and Johnny Hunter (drums), plus Swiss trombonist Simon Petermann. The group’s 2020 debut album “Going Down The Well” is reviewed here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/moonmot-going-down-the-well

The second MoonMot album “350 Million Herring”, from 2023,  is reviewed here;
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/moonMot-350-million-herring

Byrne is a regular presence on the Jazzmann web pages whether leading her own groups Entropii and Outlines, which put the emphasis on her as a composer, or collaborating with others. With fellow saxophonist Cath Roberts she heads the Lume organisation, a kind of ‘musicians collective’ that has co-ordinated gigs, residencies and festivals in addition to running its own record label, Luminous.

Byrne works regularly with Roberts’ own bands such as Word of Moth and Favourite Animals and the pair also play together as a saxophone duo with Byrne on alto and Roberts on baritone. Byrne also performs solo shows with her alto supplemented by an array of foot pedals. Byrne and Roberts have also worked together as part of the ensemble Saxoctopus.

Byrne’s other projects include Deemer, her sax / electronics duo with the Dutch sound artist Merijn Royaards, a line up sometimes augmented by the addition of drummer Johnny Hunter. 

Other current projects include membership of trumpeter Loz Speyer’s Inner Space quintet, the groove band Atmosfear and Ydivide, an international quintet led by the Swiss drummer and composer Clemens Kuratle.

Byrne has also been a member of the  the London Improvisers Orchestra and of the Norwich based octet Holding Hands, co-led by Chris Dowding and Rob Milne.

Other than his work with MoonMot I’m less familiar with Kuster’s playing but a glance at his website http://www.olikuster.ch reveals that he’s almost as busy as Byrne, leading his own quartet the Oli Kuster Combo in addition to working with the duos Die Astronauten (jazz and poetry with performance poet Patric Marino), Okra (with field recordist Robert Aeberhard) and Kunzi Kuster, with drummer Emanuel Kunzi.

He also works as a solo artist playing modular synths and is a member of the trio Aeiou with vocalist Karin Ospelt and drummer Kevin Chesham.

Kuster is a member of the prominent Swiss rock band Zuri West and also writes music for the cinema..

DOX drummer Xavier Kaeser is a graduate of Bern University of the Arts where he studied drums with , Julian Sartorius, Jim Black and Jeff Ballard among others. Dividing his time between Bern and Berlin he is a member of the Swiss / Italian Ossola Jazz Collective and has also worked prolifically as a sideman with leading Swiss and international musicians, among them pianists Colin Vallon, Enrico Pieranunzi and Django Bates, trumpeters Ralph Alessi and Bert Joris vocalist Andreas Schaerer and guitarist Ronny Graupe.

Although centred around the Byrne / Kuster partnership (the pair have suggested that they will continue to work with other collaborators in the future) DOX is a fully collaborative project with Kaeser functioning as an equal partner in the playing of a music that is spontaneously improvised yet which often sounds as if it may have been written.

The following paragraphs from the album press release offers a neat summation of the trio’s approach;
“Rooted in a strong ethos of celebrating spontaneous composition, the album is entirely improvised, with its many memorable hooks, melodies, beats, and chord sequences all emerging organically in the moment. The music welcomes groove, melody, and pop hooks whilst also leaning into atonality, chaos, and sonic experimentation.
Nothing was off-limits in the sessions, including full-on anthems. The result is a collision of avant- garde energy with free improvisation and electronic excitement; atonality rubbing shoulders with lush major 7 chords, scrambling saxophone lines cutting through dance beats; composition and free improvisation meeting on equal footing”.

Byrne adds;
“It reflects the balance we’re always chasing in our practice: between structured and free, electronic and acoustic, spontaneous and refined. Working in this way allows us to draw from every corner of our musical interests and bring them into one space. “It works because we fully surrender to the music. We let it lead us, rather than us trying to control it.”

The result is seven pieces of improvised music that are both adventurous and accessible, less abrasive and confrontational than much free improv but hardly lacking in terms of attitude and conviction. The presence of Xavier behind the kit provides the music with drive and impetus and much of the music is groove driven, Kaeser’s live beats providing the bedrock for Byrne’s incisive sax playing and Kuster’s consistently imaginative sound sculpting, achieved via a range of modular synths, associated electronics,  and other keyboards.

Kuster plays a mix of live keyboards and prepared material from previous sonic explorations, a continuation of the methods deployed on the “Motherboard Pinball” live shows that followed the album release. He says of this method in relation to the new recording;
“Working in this way created this beautiful tension between structure and improvisation, giving us platforms to launch from. It’s a kind of living collage of past and present ideas coming together in real time.”

The new album kicks into gear with “New Horizons”, with Kaeser establishing an implacable drum groove that provides the platform for Byrne’s incisive sax melodies and Kuster’s spacey synth textures and distorted keyboard sounds. Kuster takes a solo on what sounds like a Rhodes electric piano before Byrne returns, the sound of her sax now grittier and also electronically distorted. Meanwhile Kaeser’s drum grooves continue to evolve before the music almost collapses in on itself, the energy slowly dissipating as that new horizon is, perhaps, finally reached.

The press release accompanying the album contains “Selected track notes”, so here’s what the band themselves have to say about the opener;

“New Horizons: In a world riddled with uncertainty – shifting geopolitics, looming environmental collapse, and economic instability – New Horizons dares to remain defiantly optimistic. The track’s soaring sax melodies and gritty Rhodes progressions redirect our gaze from catastrophe toward the promise of something better. It’s a call to dream, to imagine, and to keep moving forward despite the chaos”.

The next piece, “Front Axle” is a genuine sonic oddity. It is centred around a sampled speech concerning roads and the car industry, possibly dating from the 1950s or 60s, that begins to delve more and deeply into the world of automotive engineering. The trio provide musical commentary, again centred around Kaeser’s drum grooves, Byrne’s squiggling sax interjections and Kuster’s glitchy electronics. As the piece progresses the voice of the narrator is electronically manipulated, becoming increasingly distorted before almost fading away altogether, only to return more strongly towards the end.

Here’s what the trio themselves have to say about it;
“Front Axle: A collision of past and future, where disjointed sax lines and distorted synths drive a surreal, otherworldly journey. The narrator’s deep dive into automotive engineering becomes unexpectedly profound, layered over ghostly synths and a comforting, steady beat that harks back to simpler times. As the track progresses, voice distortion and fragmented sax explorations unravel nostalgia, revealing a fading world. Front Axle transports us from analogue familiarity to the uncanny digital present: an elegy for a pre-internet age.”

Ushered in by Kuster’s keyboard textures “Frozen Tides” is genuinely atmospheric, but not in the usual spacey way. Instead it evokes the polar landscapes implicit in the title, the sax melodies reminiscent of the ‘Nordic’ jazz of Jan Garbarek, the trilling Rhodes and ethereal electronica perhaps recalling Bugge Wesseltoft, or even Joe Zawinul on Miles Davis’ “In A Silent Way”. Kaeser ia more peripheral figure this time around, contributing delicately brushed drums to one of the album’s most evocative and beautiful pieces.

The album as a whole expresses a genuine concern for environmental issues and this is particularly apparent in the trio’s notes for this particular track;
“Frozen Tides: Icy and luminous, this track shimmers with fragile beauty, capturing the transience of life in suspended animation. Life moves fast. We rarely stop to take it in. Frozen Tides pauses that momentum, evoking sunrises, mountaintops, and the delicate miracle of a planet hanging in space. A persistent bass pulse underlines the constant rhythm of existence, while the saxophone’s repeated motif offers an anthem of quiet awe. It’s a reminder to cherish life and protect its fragile brilliance before it slips away.”

There are no track notes for “Unruly Passenger”, a piece featuring dubby electronics, wispy sax melodies and fluid drum grooves. It’s a piece that begins to sound darker and more dystopian as it progresses with Byrne’s increasingly strident sax wails underpinned by the sounds of heavily distorted keyboards, harsh electronics and the evolving clatter of Kaeser’s drums.

The title track is arguably the centre piece of the album. Even more unsettling than “Unruly Passenger” it’s a combination of electronica and good old fashioned skronk with glitchy, distorted synth sounds and other electronics combining with searing, belligerent sax and pounding drums to create a quite glorious racket.

The band offer further insights into the piece;
“Drowned Circuits: A full-spectrum meltdown where dissonance, data overload, and distorted synths collide with urgent, restless intensity. This is the descent into disorder, into the psyche’s shadow realm where logic unravels and instinct takes over. Edgy synth textures, pounding drums, and warped saxophones swirl in a sonic labyrinth. Drowned Circuits is both chaos and catharsis: a fever dream of modern life where meaning flickers in the noise, and survival demands intuition”.

There are no track notes for the final two pieces, the first of which, “Synapse Shindig”, sounds much as its title might suggest. Here glitchy drum beats and electronics, punctuated by squiggling sax interjections and chiming keyboards combine to create music that sounds anxious and fractious, but not devoid of melody as Byrne’s sax begins to soar above the fragmented rhythms. Kuster’s keyboards then take over for a while before the saxophone returns.

The closing “Nebula” sounds much as its title might suggest, spacey and atmospheric and centred around Kuster’s keys and electronics with Kaeser providing succinct drum commentary and Byrne adding long, relatively simple sax melody lines.

“Drowned Circuits” represents a worthy follow up to “Motherboard Pinball” and “Algorithmic Quotidian”, with the addition of drums helping to create music that manages to be simultaneously more interesting and more accessible. A rare feat. The balance between improvisation and structure continues to fascinate and this is a recording that ranks favourably with Byrne’s best work. All of her projects are fascinating and DOX is no exception. It would be good if this trio could undertake some live shows too.

Following the success of this recording it will also be interesting to see who Byrne and Kuster choose as their next collaborator.

“Drowned Circuits” is available here;
https://efpirecords.bandcamp.com/album/drowned-circuits

 

blog comments powered by Disqus