The 3rd album from the improvising trio of Nate Wooley on trumpet, Ingebrigt Haker Flaten on bass, and Chris Corsano on drums, is a live recording at the 2018 Experimental Sound Studio's Option Series, a smoldering session of collective improvisation that builds tension through impressive rhythmic texture and releases it in cathartic and passionate passages.
Format: LP Condition: New Released: 2020 Country: USA Packaging: LP Recorded live at Fulton Street Collective, Chicago, Illinois, on February 10th, 2018 by Alex Inglizian.
"This recording of Icepick was made on the occasion of a gathering supporting the OPTION series at Experimental Sound Studios in Chicago, where we celebrated the spirit of the collective grange."-Astral Spirits
"Sun Ra may have told everyone he was from Saturn, but the Afrofuturistic avant-gardist spent the 1950s in Chicago. While he was here, he recorded "El Is a Sound of Joy," jazz's greatest tribute to the city's public transport system. No one in improvising trio Icepick-bassist Ingebrigt Håker Flaten, trumpeter Nate Wooley, and drummer Chris Corsano-now lives in Chicago (Håker Flaten spent a few years here in the aughts), but in 2018 the group came to town to play a benefit for Experimental Sound Studio's Option Series, a weekly concert and salon launched in 2015 that served as a beacon for improvisers around the world until COVID-19 closed everything down. Hellraiser, the trio's splendid third album, was recorded at that gig, which took place at Fulton Street Collective, a near-west-side loft space where it's possible to hear the Green Line trains when the music goes quiet. So it's only fitting that two of the LP's three tracks ("El-Bound" and "Blueline") are titled in homage to the CTA's elevated train system. The collective experience of Icepick's members encompasses a myriad of improvisational possibilities, and their technical acumen allows them to tackle tradition-steeped swing as easily as post-everything noise, but they keep their focus on evolving sonic narratives that resolve each knotty exchange or coarse textural exploration with a nakedly emotional tune."-Bill Meyer, The Chicago Reader