The self-titled debut of this Philadelphia quartet (saxophonists Dan Scofield and Bryan Rogers, bassist Matt Engle, drummer Dan Capecchi) is an unusually strange and haunting album – think of an ambient remix of Zorn’s Spy Vs Spy, or a half-wounded, half-brutal reimagining of a Konitz/Marsh record. The live recording took place in the extremely echoey acoustic of St. Mary’s Church, and the music’s smeary, slo-mo feel makes for a refreshing change from the carefully calibrated metrical complexities of much modern jazz. It’s music where multiple pulses and sensibilities lap against one another, and even when there’s a definite pulse there’s little sense of a fixed groove. Who knows if this is what these guys usually sound like – it’d be worth hearing what they’d do in a drier studio setting – but it’s certainly a unique album, and an auspicious debut.

Nate Dorward

Exclaim