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Scorch Trio

Brolt

2008 » Rune Gramofon

posted Fri Jun 06th, 2008 by Jason Ferguson

In 1969, after leaving Miles Davis’ group, Tony Williams took up the acid-soaked rock/jazz fusion gauntlet laid down by Miles and debuted his own group, the Tony Williams Lifetime, a power trio featuring Williams on drums, Larry Young on organ and John McLaughlin on guitar. The group’s first album was Emergency!, a smoking slab of rough-edged and rocking psychedelic funk that connected itself to jazz only through the players’ pedigrees and the improvisational flair they displayed. Oslo-based Scorch Trio – headed up by guitarist/composer Raoul Björkenheim – evokes, more than any of the other artists frequently namechecked in reference to the band (Zappa, Band of Gypsies), the powerful, free-form sound of Williams’ Emergency! album. This is primarily because the group is, like Lifetime, clearly immersed in the jazz tradition, but also moving decisively away from it in favor of sprawling, rockist jams that allow the players to freely fly off their respective handles. In keeping with Scorch’s analog fetishism (like their other releases, this one was recorded and mixed on analog tape), the 2-LP vinyl version of Brolt contains four extra tracks