NoBusiness has had a long history of piano trios from Marilyn Lerner/Ken Filiano/Lou Grassi’s Arms Spread Wide over Upcoming Hurricane by Pascal Niggenkemper, Simon Nabatov and Gerald Cleaver to Plaything by Gianni Lenoci, Kent Carter and Billy Elgart. Their latest release is ROIL, an Australian piano trio which was founded in 2007, consisting of Chris Abrahams (p), Mike Majkowski (b) and James Waples (dr).

Abrahams is mainly known for his work with The Necks (a highly successful piano trio featuring Lloyd Swanton and Tony Buck) and like them the music of ROIL is also slowly unfolding – but it provides a more open-ended context. However, as in The Necks the emphasis is also on collective improvisation and repetition to create a trance-like atmosphere. Abrahams’ inclination for weird yet simple figures and groove elements without confining the interactive possibilities of free improvisation meets excellently with Majkowki’s very physical and robust bass playing and Waples’ elegant and subtle interjections.

Very often the pieces begin with tentative structures from one of the musicians before the others comment on it, but then they never get stuck on a melody or a groove, they rather shift the track into another direction which often happens almost indiscernibly. A perfect example for this approach is the title track which is dominated by Majkowski playing stoically one single note accompanied by Waples on cymbals. Then Majkowski decides to alter the bass line and Waples drops out, but he is soon replaced by Abrahams playing a very contrastive and bumpy free jazz pattern with extremely high notes. In the meantime Majkowski has taken the bow and his shy arcos fade out the experiment.
It’s the controlled energy, the angular textures, the delicate dynamics that distinguish ROIL from The Necks. While The Necks’ approach is very accessible and sometimes even obvious (and I like that a lot) ROIL lives up to its name, with explorations of structures and timbres that are disturbing, fragmented and irritating.