Adam Caine Trio

Featuring: Tom Blancarte

*2023 stock* "Thousandfold is Brooklyn-based guitarist Adam Caine's debut as a leader; he's worked with Soundpainting composer Walter Thompson in addition to leading his own quartet, quintet, and the trio heard here. He's joined on these eight improvisations by regular conscript, drummer John Wagner, and bassist Tom Blancarte. The unaccompanied opening to "Castros" provides a good space in which to view Caine's approach to the guitar. It begins with blocky, almost Thelonious Monk-like cadences (albeit fuzzed-out and distorted) before slowly piling arpeggios contoured by delay and seasick volume pedal actions. With an array of tools and a significant amount of electricity, not to mention the skating rhythm of Blancarte and Wagner, it would be easy to imagine Caine taking off on nervy flights. However, there's a sense of introspection beneath his overtone-laden chunks as he investigates phrase logics before completely unspooling them.

That's not to say there isn't a fair amount of jarring music here—the opening "Outer Church" quickly moves from jagged midrange tweak to sludgy undertow, the leader alternately hunkering in low blats, blues-rock charge and metallic crunch as bass and percussion surround with a mutable surge. "Ride the Tiger" is in homage to bassist-composer Adam Lane, who Caine has worked with. In comparison to some of the dirtier slogs on the set, this piece is almost "clean," darting fistfuls of sounds and top-heavy peals skimming Wagner's Sunny Murray-like churn and Blancarte's supple pizzicato outlines. "Invisible Kingdom" plies fullness and thinness, col legno bass rattle and snare chatter a shifting backdrop for brittle clusters and spiky repetition. Not quite "free jazz" or "free rock," Thousandfold is certainly scorching." - Clifford Allen