Formed by percussionist Trevor Taylor and featuring a fluid membership, Circuit mixes acoustic instruments with electronics and real-time processing to morph alien sounding landscapes from their careful, well-honed improvising. On this disc, Taylor is joined by Paul Dunmall, Hilary Jeffries and Roberto Filoseta on saxophones, trombone and piano respectively.
At times its hard to even notice the electronics, there's a lot of what sounds like straight acoustic improvising using fairly traditional technique, and following the tried and true soft and sparse to louder and more dense then back again pyramid that so much improvising tends to follow, especially during the third track (all tracks are unnamed). There's a definite consonance to the playing, which at other times resembles "chamber jazz", or maybe even the old cool school. Echoes of everything from Lennie Tristano to Cecil Taylor abound. Gradually the electronics begin seeping in, modifying source sounds and producing an otherworldly cast of digital dust and occasionally cheesy envelope following. It's akin to witnessing a story gathering distortion over time, and from many tellers.