Percussionist Kate Gentile and guitarist/bassist Dustin Carlson started a duo group in 2012 where they wrote songs, rehearsed them, discussed them and tweaked them constantly, as they also lived their lives together. Alto saxophonist Nathaniel Morgan didn’t arrive until 2018 to make the duo a trio but he quickly picked up on the uncommon music Gentile and Carlson made and ended up augmenting it.
Secret People – as this trio is called – operates on a secret code known by only the three; they play tightly-woven passages together and then ball-out into freeform without warning, but always coalescing regardless. Pulling together influences that range from Morton Feldman and Black Sabbath to Merzbow and Tim Berne, Secret People has come up with music that’s truly alien; we call it ‘jazz’ because of the improvisation aspects of it, but otherwise it’s simply impossible to peg.
That’s undoubtedly what they were aiming for. Secret People is the collective output from three highly individualistic artists that manages to be more idiosyncratic than sum of its parts. In a very good way, too.
“Legitimate Perseverance” is a highlight cut from their self-titled debut album that’s full of them, and we’re providing a first listen in the stream above. It’s a tale of two attitudes; for the first half it’s a chunky, math-y progression where harmony and rhythm meld together in a threatening mien like the Scorch Trio. In the second half the tightness turns into looseness and then the three converge together again for serpentine lines played leisurely so this time.
It’s a song full of unpredictably pleasant surprises, but the whole album is like that.
Secret People will become available on April 29, 2022 from Out of Your Head Records. Pre-order/order it from Bandcamp.
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