Cold Walk by Triple Blind

Triple Blind was formed during the Covid-19 lockdown. Longtime friends Nick Jost, Kyle Nasser, and Peter Kronreif, who'd played together in various settings over the previous decade, decided to collaborate on a project. Working from midi skeletons, they tracked remotely from their apartments, collaboratively arranging everything as the parts were recorded. Needless to say, this is an unusual way for a "jazz" or "improvised music" album to be made, but they took advantage of the format to explore the indie-rock and groove aspects of their musical conception. Bassist Nick Jost engaged in a considerable amount of sound design: layering parts, running midi through synths, and using pedals to transform acoustic parts. The resulting self-titled album won the group the Chamber Music America New Jazz Works grant in 2021 - with Nasser as composer.

The group decided to pursue the exact opposite approach to recording their new album Cold Walk. They recorded live in one room at the famed Dreamland Recording Studio. They also added keyboardist Dov Manski (who'd collaborated as a special guest on two of the tracks from the previous album) on rhodes, synth, and mellotron. Despite the difference in recording format, the group maintains the pop sensibilities and pairs them with improvisational abstraction to great effect. Owing to the acoustics of the former church at Dreamland, the particular instrumentation (saxophones, electric keys, acoustic bass, and a very large drum kit), the aesthetic sensibilities of the players themselves, and the sympathetic engineering/mixing of Eli Crewes, Cold Walk is a very unique and expressive sounding recording - you really hear the room and the live interplay viscerally.

The compositions by Nasser are highly contrapuntal - harmony expressed through interwoven lines with a couple of explicit nods to classical music in the chorale opener, Bask, and the "Sketchy" Invention. The intention underlying the playing and arranging is more like twisted pop music, though. Melodies stand out among "parts" played by the rhythm section - no generic comping, patterns, or rhythms here - no simple "blowing on the form." Most of the pieces have contrasting sections. There's careful attention to the arc of the tracks coupled with simplicity and directness of expression: modal groove sections lead to 12-tone odd-meter frenzies, collective improvisations lead to precisely notated ensemble passages.

The players in Triple Blind all have burgeoning careers in music. Bassist Nick Jost, originally from St. Louis, plays and tours with the Grammy-nominated band Baroness while participating in Brooklyn's creative music scene in projects like Shardik and Wildermaker. Massachusetts-born saxophonist Kyle Nasser currently co-leads a straight-ahead quartet with pianist Simona Premazzi in addition to leading a few different projects with players including Allan Mednard, Rich Perry, and Jeff Miles. Drummer Peter Kronreif, from Salzburg, Austria, tours the U.S. and Europe on a regular basis, playing everything from big band to small group jazz to neo-soul and hip hop. Hailing from Bar Harbor, Maine, Dov Manski has recorded with acclaimed vocalist Kristin Slip (of the Dirty Projectors) and plays as a sideman on a wide assortment of projects from chamber music to reggae.

Triple Blind was formed during the Covid-19 lockdown. Longtime friends Nick Jost, Kyle Nasser, and Peter Kronreif, who'd played together in various settings over the previous decade, decided to collaborate on a project. They released their first record in 2021 and are following up with their sophomore effort Cold Walk, which features Dov Manski on keys.

kylenasser.com
peterkronreif.com