ADAM LANE TRIO – Absolute Horizon (NB2LP 68-I / Extended / 2LP-2013)

Label: NoBusiness Records – NB2LP 68-I / Extended Edition
Limited to 200 copies
Format: 2x Vinyl, LP / Country: Lithuania / Released: 2013
Style: Avant-garde Jazz, Free Jazz
Recorded June 10, 2010 at Wombat Recording Company, Brooklyn, NY
Mixed in Brooklyn, NY July 31, 2012 – by Jon Rosenberg
Recorded By – Ross Bonadonna
Design – Oskaras Anosovas
Photography By [Cover] – Peter Gannushkin
Co-producer – Valerij Anosov
Producer – Danas Mikailionis
Liner Notes – Adam Lane
Music By – Lane, Jones, Anderson
Matrix / Runout: 13-07/5488-0004 NB2LP 68-I

side 1:
A1 - Absolute Horizon ............................................................................................ 8:57
A2 - Stars ............................................................................................................... 6:54

side 2:
B1 - The Great Glass Elevator .............................................................................. 7:48
B2 - Run To Infinity ................................................................................................ 9:52

side 3:
C - Apparent Horizon ........................................................................................... 10:14

side 4:
D1 - Bioluminescence ............................................................................................ 7:23
D2 - Light ............................................................................................................. 10:50

Personnel:
Adam Lane – bass
Darius Jones – alto saxophone
Vijay Anderson – drums, percussion

After listening to the album, it's somewhat mystifying that the program was constructed entirely on improvisation. This attribute alone serves as a testament to the artists' stunning interactions and reformulations, evidenced within each ensuing development.

I’m a sucker for the thick, bluesy tone of Adam Lane’s bass—somehow, he always manages to convey its grittiest, most grounded side. Absolute Horizon kicks off with a track of the same name,  a slow tattoo rising from drummer Vijay Anderson and Lane stumbling into a bass line that can’t help but give off a little swagger. Slowly, a groove coalesces, just the sort of low-end ride to best deliver Darius Jones’s sickly-sweet saxophone. Within minutes, you realize: this is what I want in a saxophone trio. There’s an edge for sure, but also the piece that fits perfectly into the well-worn rhythmic folds of your brain. Things heat up, but the trio never breaks a sweat. They ease out of the track just a coolly and calmly as they brought it into being.

The rest of Absolute Horizon can be typified by a track like “The Great Glass Elevator,” which breaks out a slick bassline about halfway through, the rhythm section working its way to a place where Jones gets everything he needs to go to town. And he does, getting such a deep, soulful sound out his alto that it sounds far more substantial, like a tenor. Elsewhere, “Stars” finds Lane bowing the hell out of his effects-laden bass. It’s not the most effective track, but it showcases a different side of the group as they move away from bluesy, heavily rhythmic improvisation and work towards continuously molding and remolding a unified slab of sound. “Run to Infinity” sounds just as it should, a driving rhythm over which Jones continually accelerates, the gaps between notes becoming ever shorter, the melodic line
further and further compressed. Absolute Horizon closes on “Light,” which has a walking bassline that would be better characterized as sprinting, complete with racing high-hat and uncontainable shouts of exhilaration in the background.

The CD version of Absolute Horizon is nearly twice the length of the LP, and for gourmets, an extended LP release is available too, a double album in a very limited edition of just 200 copies. All tracks are worth your time (“Apparent Horizon” has a particularly tasty bit of drum and bass). Basically, Absolute Horizon is the usual NoBusiness story: above-average musicians making above-average music. A little something for fans of Lane’s rawer side after the more straight-ahead sounds of the Blue Spirit Band releases.

(Review by Dan Sorrells)

If you find it, buy this album!