Triosk live at The Premises in Hackney (25/04/05)

Triosk were blinding. It was a well-intimate gig in a rehearsal roomin Hackney. Quite a plush rehearsal room with space for an audience of 25-30 but still a rehearsal room with a rock band providing a muffled background between songs.

They played against loops coming out of some mini-loopbox on pretty much every track. Mostly adding good atmosphere, sometimes seeming a bit superfluous. Nice octopus drumming often changing from brushes to sticks half-waythrough a piece. Sometimes putting a cymbal on top of snare and tom to create a sound more as texture rather than straightforward drumming. Lots of scratchy, light skittering sounds like on the record.

Bassist alternated between double bass (oooooh, double bass) and electric but using the electric more as a soupy, textural thing - building a wall of noise through a delay pedal - rather than as a straightforward bass. He certainly inspired me to think about playing less notes, more often.

Keyboard guy played sat between a baby grand and a Rhodes, occasionally playing both at once. He also controlled the loop box thing and during the encore (which had the drummer playing mad 16ths and keeping up a chunky, funky, jazzy rhythm) dropped the piano/rhodes out for a bar at a time which sounded amazing. Amazing in the way that it sounded wrong the first time it happened, like it was a mistake. Perhaps they were improvising and it was a mistake first time round. Whatever, it sounded great.

They opened with a completely improvised thing, played half-a-dozen from 'Moment Returns' and four or five new things. Jaw-droppingly brilliant but (and I don't think I'm deluding myself) not using techniques a million miles away from our own little improv world. They have this signature thing that they slipped into a couple of times - the kind of four-to-the-floor bass/bass drum/cymbal combo pulse (see Love Chariot for an example of this on the album) - just like we have the spazzing thing that is kind of a Trida signature. Like on the end of this untitled piece.

Hopefully they will come back and do some proper gigs within reach of London.

www.triosk.com
www.posteverything.com/leaf