The album title Possible Utopias for Jazz Quintet is already half a lie. The supposedly jazz quintet is, at its core, simply Laurence Pike himself, his drum kit and a collection of electronic gadgets. But the deception is redeemed by the promised utopias. The Australian drummer, who has been a member of around half a dozen experimental bands – most notably PVT and Liars – genuinely sketches out a number of utopian possibilities, not only for jazz but for experimental music more broadly.
One such utopia might be to place intricate, highly complex percussion beneath a simple ambient loop before letting it dissolve into a tribal groove, with an alto saxophone adding a handful of accents at the end. Or to accompany the percussive chance patterns of European free improvisation with a straight, heavy beat. Or to bombard Erik Satie’s piano with Actress-style dark sound files. Anyone listening can claim a different musical utopia from this album as their own..
