Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, and Patrick Shiroishi are a Los Angeles-based trio specializing in the improvisational. Making Colors is their new record, abstract and robust, available April 24 on Natural Purple Swirl vinyl in an edition of 300 copies through AKP Recordings.
Now three releases strong, the collaboration of Dave Harrington, Max Jaffe, and Patrick Shiroishi is a creative union of equality, even as the three have individual levels of productivity outside the trio. Shiroishi has the largest output, as he’s credited on over 60 full-length releases as a leader or as part of a duo or group. He’s amassed a long and varied list of collaborators.
Harrington has also been busy, having played in the groups Darkside, Hyloxolos, and Taper’s Choice and leading Lights Fluorescent and the Dave Harrington Group. His list of collaborators is also sizeable and broad, with a few of them having also played with Shiroishi and Jaffe.
Jaffe has a pair of albums out under his own name, and he’s played in the groups Afuche, Chives, Elder Ones, In One Wind, JOBS, Killer Bob, and Three Reps. Amongst numerous credits as a contributor, Jaffe played on Kid Millions’ 100 Disciplines and Steph Richards’ Power Vibe. He was also in the James Brandon Lewis Trio for an album, Eye of I.
For Making Colors, Shiroishi is credited with alto saxophone, electronics, and iPhone, Jaffe with drum set, sensory percussion, gongs, and effects, and Harrington with guitar, organ, and electronics. As the record plays, pinpointing exactly who is responsible for specific sounds can prove frustrating, so it’s best just to let it flow.
Of course, there are numerous sounds that are easily attributable. After a relatively tranquil beginning in the album’s first track “open (4-a),” some fine amp grouch bursts forth, with reed wiggle, head thwack, and electronic reverberations emerging after the progressions carry over into “six acting orange (aaaaa).”
The trio is wholly improvisation-based, and Making Colors is essentially one long improv excursion, but the track divisions, a few quite short and a couple breaking ten minutes, don’t register as random. The individual playing and the interactions can get raw and wild, but rarely does the sound get especially muscular.
The main exception would be “FRACTAL HASH,” which delivers some rock heft as the proceedings get plenty skronky. But there are also stretches of silence and electronic looping on the album. Shiroishi gets some very pretty blowing in during “sweat street 7-QS:ZBN9_.” Closer “trackerKeeper” is pleasant ambient drift accented with a few sweet notes and more pretty playing from Shiroishi.
Altogether, Making Colors solidifies that the improv impulse is inexhaustible and capable of collective distinctiveness.
GRADED ON A CURVE:
A-
