The last time we checked in on keyboardist/composer Alister Spence, he was composing for and conducting over an orchestra led by Satoko Fujii but this practitioner of adventurous music looks for new adventures wherever and with whoever he can find it. Spence does have a going concern with his Alister Spence Trio that includes Lloyd Swanton (double bass) and Toby Hall (drums), but that doesn’t mean the concern is going the same as before.
For their eighth album Asteroid Ekosystem, Spence shook things up by inviting a guitarist — Ed Kuepper — to join them for the recording sessions. In Kuepper, Spence brought a real provocateur into the party.
You see, Kuepper brings decades of punk, post-punk, avant-jazz and pop sensibilities and he brings much of that to bear on Asteroid Ekosystem. The more you dig into this guy’s rich history, the more you understand how he could parachute into just about any setting, make himself at home and not only adapt but disrupt. He co-founded the proto-punk band The Saints in the 70s and then started the post-punk band with avant-jazz leanings he named Laughing Clowns. His own solo work revealed strong pop/rock sensibilities.
When you’re capable of anything, others can anticipate nothing from you. Undoubtedly, that’s what Spence wanted and that’s what you got: Asteroid Ekosystem was largely conceived in the studio and the temporary quartet consistently makes progressive instrumental music with an edge, but that edge takes on many different forms. They also had lot to say, two CD discs worth.
“Not A Leaf In Any Forest” is a tantalizing indication of what Swanton’s other band The Necks might sound like with a guitarist in the band. To be sure, Spence’s unit isn’t closely following The Necks’ perfect minimalism template but there’s that same sort of slow unfolding and Kuepper’s shimmering guitar just in a background role does so much to enrich that.
“To The Invisible” is similar to “Not A Leaf In Any Forest,” but this time at the top of the arc, Kuepper’s guitar roars to an industrial/ambient din. “The Night Became” and “Many Would Fly” also follow this simmering pattern, where Kuepper’s guitars and effects has a leading role in effectively setting a mood, prolonging it and modulating it.
But this is hardly the only strategy the four employ and they find many ways of leveraging the guitarist’s diverse potency. Kuepper has an innate sense of how and when to regulate his footprint, imposing himself on the insistent groover “A Passing Universe” with alternately airiness and ferociousness.
This isn’t to forget whose name is on the band. Spence adds tasteful jazz spice to the nominally blues “Nature,” a song that would have been a great, loose-limbed acoustic trio tune on its own, but it’s elevated further by Kuepper, who brings the psychedelic fuzz. “Face Of The Atom” is not ‘nominally’ blues, it’s the straight-up stuff, with all the requisite chops from everyone on display.
Hall’s crisp, calypso-ish strut sets up “Caught At All” so well, Spence and Kuepper can get by on chiming together on repeating a 3-note figure. Interesting percussive inflections outright take the place of harmony on “The One The Other.”
There are times where Kuepper’s rock background comes to the fore. For the first three or so minutes, “Planetary Forces” is what you might get if you mix jazz with 2112-era Rush, but then Kuepper moves away from the front and sets loose yawning backdrops as Spence stretches out on piano before the whole thing simply dissolves into the mist. For “And Set The Sun,” Spence’s piano softens Kuepper’s stinging guitar but when Hall’s drums come crashing in, the song’s rock side takes complete control. Kuepper digs deep into his bag o’ effects for “Winds Take Forests,” creating the sound of unending destruction and finding communion on Swanton’s sawing bass in a noise-rock piece in the style of Caspar Brötzmann Massaker. Spence and Hall assert themselves nine minutes in, taking things up to another plane.
“Silence In The Earth” starts meekly but by the time you reach this ending track, you know it isn’t meant to stay that way. Hall is practically sharing the lead with Spence while Kuepper’s squalls adds intensity to an already raging fire and is also to douse it when the jam dies down to glowing embers.
The clashing/meshing of sounds and the mixing up of mood all done in a freewheeling, unforced manner define Asteroid Ekosystem from its beginning on through its end, regardless of whether the music is tuneful or not. That’s because this a record of distinctly dauntless personalities, not merely a record of a bunch of songs.
Asteroid Ekosystem is now offered for sale on Bandcamp.
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