Music By Gestalt is a very useful title for the debut by LA-based trio Gestalt when you consider there are also short films, dance pieces and — yes — an interactive lighting project by Gestalt. The trio of pianist Tim Johnson, bassist Miller Wrenn, and drummer Jacob Richards (since replaced by Matt Smith) are all about doing art in new and different ways, and no more so than their innovative approach to music.
Minimalism and math-rock are two approaches to music that you would think are mutually exclusive, but Gestalt shows that isn’t so. The economy of movement of the former style is married to the head-snapping density of the latter, and though it’s way over my pay grade to adequately explain how it’s done, their use of discrete rhythmic cycles making up a great part of the collective improvisation (there are no real individual solos here) must have something to do with it. You can sense the rhythm shifting around independent of rapidly cycling melodic figures, but somehow the band figures out how to resolve these furious forces together.
What does that all mean to the lay progressive music listener? Well…the music by Gestalt has been called avant-garde math-rock, lying somewhere on the long road that connects Phillip Glass with The Bad Plus. The group even tips it collective cap to that well-known trio with the song “Bad Math,” which is dynamic with a capital ‘D’, zigging and zagging, an unrelenting series of vamps with put together make up a tapestry of elaborate, focused energy.
“Accents” is a waltz but not in the traditional, swinging sense. That’s because as in the prior track, it’s a series of related riffs going up and down. As the song gathers momentum, a realization that this is minimalism at work here sets in, but applied in a setting that’s more modern and lively than what we are accustomed to hearing. Those principles continue into “More Math” but the intrigue here lies in the sometimes competing harmonic ideas between Johnson’s left hand and his right one that flirts with being incompatible but these somersaults always land on its feet.
“Music for a Documentary About a Bike Ride” is a two-chord song that is fueled by the gradual transition from hushed to strident and back again and Wrenn is heard out front with Johnson to deliver that figure with delicate grace.
Despite the plodding nature often associated with minimalism, Gestalt turns it into drama. The tense “Twos And Threes” has Johnson and Richards on his snare working together on a percussive piece that spits out passion, not cold, overly calculated moves. On “Pedal Faster,” they ride up and down the scales at a furious pace that reaches the point of destruction, leaving behind a flourishing, extended finish.
Johnson attacks his piano with the vigor of Don Pullen for “Planes, Trains, and Automobiles,” deftly handling an inside/outside approach. “Schubert’s Pony” is more of that impish Pullen schizophrenia used in a song that is the most math-y (and avant-garde) of this batch and Johnson’s heavily percussive approach on “Time Management” frees up Richards to play ‘lead’ drums.
So sure, the music is stuffed full of pedantic theories and approaches but it all comes out a lot more accessible than all this might seem in print. That’s because they bring the energy and attitude of rock to it, which is where the comparisons to The Bad Plus are most apt. And like TBP, they’ve got their own thing going. A heady start for a band that may very well have only begun to tap into a mother lode of ideas.
Music By Gestalt is brought to us by Zero System Immersive Music Label. Purchase Music By Gestalt here.
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