Hanging delicately together by a shining silver thread, Aeon Trio’s music ebbs and flows from the speakers like rippling water…

Playing with a delicacy and subtlety rare in an age dominated by in your face, rapid fire rap lyrics and heavy metal’s dense riffage, Maya Fridman, Atzko Kohashi and Franz Van Der Hoeven have crafted pieces and reimagined classics for an unspecified Elegy.

‘Elegy’ though, is more of a description of the overall emotional quality of these pieces, rather than an exact definition.

Painful shades of resigned sadness, faded greys and off-whites, these are the colours of Elegy. Resignation not to the sadness, more so, a realisation that this is the way things are. Now and evermore.

Atzko’s quietly dissonant jazz chords add teasing hints of a deeper darkness to Maya’s mournful bowed cello lines on Lamento. While on Blues For Maya, Franz’s double bass lines give the piece the legs to soldier on. As musicians, this trio are not merely virtuosos. They are impeccable.

Like all the best players, Fridman, Kohashi and Van Der Hoeven understand the importance of breathing space. They each keep their own instrument’s parts suitably sparse as to give the others’ room to move. The end result is 13 pieces of perfectly complimentary yet contrasting instrument lines.

While the pace of the album is noticeably subdued, especially evident on the Trio’s version of Ornette Coleman’s Lonely Woman, to criticise Elegy for it’s consistently mellow pace would be to miss the point.

While the wild and frantic improv of the free jazz maestros is more immediately arresting, it’s also off-putting for many.

But Elegy, unlike the dismissal of free jazz by the ill-informed, could never be cast aside as mere “noise.”

As a result, rather than grabbing one by the lapels and shaking them for their attention, Aeon Trio have made a record that lure the listener in with beckoning finger. A tearful siren’s song.

An elegy without words. Yet, through the human qualities of these masters’ playing, images and, indeed, words, come cascading through the mind. Without such niceties as a powerful beat, catchy hooks or lyrics, Aeon Trio’s debut album is remarkably breathtaking in its scope.

…And the music flows on, the ripples slowly making their way to the shoreline. Let’s hope that someone, is paying attention.

by James Fleming