DOX

“Wayfinding”

(Efpi Records, Digital Release only)

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

The “Wayfinding” EP is the second release by DOX, the collaborative trio of Anglo-Irish saxophonist Dee Byrne and the Swiss musicians Oli Kuster (synths) and Xavier Kaeser (drums).

It follows 2025’s “Drowned Circuits”, a full length digital only release also issued by the Manchester based label Efpi Records. That album is reviewed here and provides the basis for the following biographical material.
https://www.thejazzmann.com/reviews/review/dox-drowned-circuits

DOX 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, Moncef Genoud and Django Bates, trumpeters Ralph Alessi and Bert Joris, saxophonists Alexandra Grimal, Domenic Landolf and Letieres Leite, vocalist Andreas Schaerer, bass clarinettist Rudi Mahall,  and guitarist Ronny Graupe.

The “Wayfinding” EP represents a continuation of the excellent “Drowned Circuits”. The following quotes from the trio’s Bandcamp page outline their approach;

“The five tracks continue the trio’s distinctive experimentation at the meeting point of improvisation, composition, and production, without settling comfortably into any one of them.  A collective sense of openness, inquisitiveness, and interplay remains yet an even stronger sense of shape and direction is clear, the chemistry and understanding between the three musicians developing even further during live performances in both Switzerland and UK in early 2026. The title of the EP reflects the sense of discovery that emerged through making it, as recurring themes of movement, uncertainty, revelation, and renewal gradually came into focus and unexpectedly connected the musical ideas. Track titles Commencement, The Descent, Epiphany, Perseverance, Renewal reflect one potential interpretation of the almost half hour EP: as interconnected stages of a journey shaped by movement, transformation and discovery.”

Byrne has also stated;
“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 “Drowned Circuits” recording was surprisingly accessible, less abrasive than much free improvisation, but hardly lacking in terms of attitude and convention. DOX’s music embraces readily recognisable melodies and is not afraid to be tuneful, yet a sense of experimentation is very much at the core of their output with Kuster’s imaginative use of modular synths and other electronic devices at the core of the trio’s music. He’s their ‘mad scientist’ figure, cut from the same cloth as Elliot Galvin and Toby McLaren, both former members of Led Bib.

Still operating on the cusp of composition and improvisation the new EP exhibits similar qualities to its predecessor. Opener “Commencement” begins with the sounds of bubbling synths and percolating percussion topped by the beguiling melody lines of Byrne’s treated sax. Kuster and Kaeser provide a dense rhythmic web for Byrne to improvise around with Kuster generating a fascinating variety of sounds from his array of synths as he works in close conjunction with the patter of Kaeser’s percussion. The final sequence of the opening track sees the trio abandoning the frantic rhythms in favour of a more chilled out coda with Kuster’s ambient synth sounds augmented by the sounds of cymbal shimmers and gongs. Clocking in at just under five minutes “Commencement” is a fascinating start to the trio’s musical mini-odyssey and a fascinating journey in and of itself.

“The Descent” offers a pulsating blend of acoustic and electronic beats, modular synth drones and textures and the melodic inventions of Byrne’s saxophone within a constantly evolving sonic landscape. Byrne’s website http://www.deebyrnemusic.com offers the following description of the trio’s music. It’s pretty much spot on with regards to describing what’s going on here;
“DOX continues to explore the friction between groove, texture and abstraction. Kuster’s layered keyboard work and modular electronics generate shifting environments and unstable rhythmic frameworks, while Byrne’s saxophone and Kaeser’s kinetic drumming move freely through and against them. The result is a sound world of fractured ambient landscapes, glitch-laden beats, free improvisation and restless rhythmic energy”.

“Epiphany” seems to move through three distinct phases. The first sounds comparatively chilled when compared to “The Descent”. With its lightly pulsing electronic rhythms and glitchy beats augmented by the humanising sounds of Byrne’s lilting sax melodies and Kaeser’s cymbals the music evokes a kind of dystopian, ‘Blade Runner’  like sonic landscape. The second features the Garbarek like wail of Byrne’s sax, a cry in the wilderness accompanied by Kaeser’s cymbals and the rustle of percussion. The final passage offers the kind of resolution implicit in the title with lush synth textures,  long sax melody lines and the rustle of percussion approximating the sound of sea on shore.

The brief “Perseverance” commences with the sounds of electronic glitches, spacey synth textures and the clank of percussion. Byrne’s sax emerges to improvise sax melodies above an increasingly busy rhythmic backdrop that merges the sounds of acoustic and electronic beats.

The EP concludes with “Renewal”, introduced by the clarion call of Kaeser’s cymbals. It’s a fast moving piece featuring Byrne’s airy sax melodies dancing above Kaeser’s driving drum rhythms. As is the DOX way the lines between the sounds of acoustic drums and electronic beats becomes increasingly blurred as the piece progresses. Byrne drops out for a period and there’s a passage that is essentially a ‘synth solo’ from Kuster. There’s no letting up in the pace of the music and when Byrne’s sax returns it’s with a darker, harder edged sound. There’s a further keyboard led passage followed by a powerful sax solo from Byrne as she and Kuster continue to bounce ideas off each other, fuelled by Kaeser’s relentless rhythmic drive. Eventually the music fragments into something more obviously unstructured, essentially caving in on itself, or perhaps achieving the kind of transcendence implicit in the title.

A worthy follow up to past glories “Wayfinding” sees DOX continuing to blaze their unique electro-acoustic improvisational trail and continuing to create music that simultaneously intrigues, beguiles and excites. This is music that blurs the boundaries between the acoustic and electronic and between composition and improvisation, straddling a particularly fertile creative cusp in the process.

It’s not music that is always easy to describe, and I’m not really sure that I’ve done it full justice, but it it is genuinely interesting and exciting to listen to, and as I observed at the time of “Drowned Circuits” it’s also remarkably accessible for music that is normally ascribed to the “avant garde” / “experimental” / “improvised” bag.

I really like DOX’s music and my only regret is not getting to see them perform live on their recent UK tour, which unfortunately didn’t come anywhere near to my location.

DOX’s recordings can be purchased via the Efpi Records Bandcamp page here;
https://efpirecords.bandcamp.com/music

 

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