*Edition of 100.* "Live Recordings" presents MAW—the trio of Frank Meadows (bass), Jessica Ackerley (guitar), and Eli Wallace (piano/synth)—fully testing the possibilities of their creative dialogue in front of a live audience for the first time. Two concerts in Brooklyn and Saugerties, both staged in October 2021, display the performance of an acute democratic understanding, acquired across formative years of private sessions and conversation, including the late 2020 recording session that produced their Atlantic Rhythms debut “A Maneuver Within”.
Notice Recordings became aware of the trio via Ackerley, a recent Notice artist who recorded a blistering album with Patrick Shiroishi. Having then become familiar with Wallace and Meadows’ engaging playing in other configurations, we were immediately allured by the prospect of the new trio. On this album, MAW traces a broad rhythmic and dynamic range, engaging in fierce rhythmic interplay and patiently suspended motion, all the while maintaining a controlled emphasis on colorful gesture and textural counterpoint. The trio’s knowledge of each other, as well as a diverse range of influences, is carefully condensed into a hard-won syntax which produces the concise recorded summaries presented here.
Each set has a heaviness, but they are never imposing. They are taut and physical, yet their fluidity is inviting. Atmosphere becomes important here: One can feel the dark, open, resonant room of Mise-en-Place and its industrial surroundings on Side A, augmented by Wallace's prepared piano, a thunderous and haptic blend with Ackerley and Meadows’ playfully interwoven string work. Alternatively, Side B's recording has the close intimacy of the small gallery setting at Opus 40 in upstate New York, albeit with the door open to a rainy evening, permitting the occasional pastoral ambiance, such as cawing of crows, to settle into the recording. Despite this, Side B is an intense endeavour, with swathes of Wallace's synth laced throughout the performance, a fine example of an unhinged and untamed "electric MAW".
