From the Bottle

Second album by cornetist/ electronicist/ laptop manipulator Rob Mazurek (Chicago Underground, Isotope 217, solo releases on Mego, Delmark and Moikai), Chicago-centered acoustic bassist Jason Roebke (Rapid Croche, Fred Lonberg-Holm Trio, Terminal 4) and Vancouver percussionist Dylan van der Schyff (Talking Pitctures, John Butcher). Without overplaying or extending any instrument, the three eloquently display deep orchestral colors and momentum that can shift from chattering avant garde interplay to ambient suspensions. Mazurek's cornet runs create sensuousness and melancholy that find an equal standing next to Roebke's wobbly lines and the tumbling pro/anti-beat of van der Schyff. Whereas electronics and sonic depth charges were a mere accent on the first album, here they are riding up front, propelling a bright force of abstraction and connecting stasis and activity.

"There are explicit references to jazz language - van der Schyff's subtle, loping grooves, Roebke's Charlie Haden-like low end and even what sounds like a quote from Mingus' Cumbia and Jazz Fusion half way through track 4, and of course Mazurek's flirtations with the Harmon mute - but their appearance is so natural and logical in context that any suggestion that it's all just another exercise in hip Chicago postmodernism can be dismissed out of hand. Splendid stuff." -- Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic

Released March 5, 2005