The M.O. of saxophonist Ivo Perelman is to gather a duo or group of like-minded improvisers in a room, turn on the tape recorder, and see what happens. Perelman uses the same method on Triacontagon, a confab with guitarist/composer Elliott Sharp and percussionist Cyro Baptiste, but the results are little like anything he’s recorded before.
While the saxist continues on his merry way as usual by spontaneously composing lines that veer between skronk and sleek, his bandmates look in directions other than jazz in support. Baptiste rarely puts out anything that could be conceived as conventional rhythm, preferring instead to ornament the pieces with clicks, clacks, scrapes, springs, and vocalese that sounds like a schizophrenic muttering to himself on the street. Though mostly known for noise, discordance, and experimental rock (only the tip of the iceberg with Sharp, but still), Sharp never cuts loose in the way we might expect. Instead he drives momentum via scrapes and scratches on his muted eight-string guitar, adding a conversational dimension to the soundscape being constructed by his fellows.
“Irregular Forms in Humid Space” and “Sacred Geometry of the Tropics” delight in whimsy, even a sense of no one in the room taking themselves too seriously. That makes Triacontagon one of the lighter, least demanding entries in what’s been consistently a distinctively challenging catalog.
