Nathan Bowles Trio

Nathan Bowles has found his way across the site countless times — with Bill Mackay, Black Twig Pickers, Setting, Pelt, and countless other iterations of progressive folk, bluegrass, roots, and drone. For his latest he sets up as a trio with double-bassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE). The outfit strikes a balance between the Appalachian amble of the Twigs and the more exploratory work of Setting. On the surface, the record is closest to the folk forms, Bowles banjo upfront, sparring with Toll’s bass work with a verdant lilt. As the listener wanders deeper into the record though, jazz fluidity and circular forms find the band diving into hypnotic repetition on “The Ternions,” and sounds flung far from the traditional on “Our Air.”

The latter makes finds Toll and McMurry in their most supple guise, pushed towards air-cooled bliss with the arrival of Skylar Gudasz’ flute. The song dances close to its English folk counterparts, dousing a dose of Pentangle in the American ramble of banjo. The wide scope of the album is its greatest asset, as the trio remains unbeholden to the stuffiness of tradition, instead finding themselves among the overlap of folk’s many folds. The longer pieces on the record suture the ideals of improv to the more motorik mindset of ‘70s German Progressives, tipping towards a pastoral Kosmiche scuffed with dirt. On paper, that might sound like too man irons thrown towards the coals, but the band weaves their wonders without an ounce of excess. It’s a beautiful journey, and one that absorbs the listener to the last note.

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