Wide Eyed Downbeat Review

Where the Danny Fox Trio’s debut album, The One Constant (Songlines), highlighted the pianist-composer’s classical influences, the second emphasizes his penchant for playfulness. For starters, “Drone” is among the year’s most fun single jazz tracks. Its impish, flitting piano motif rocks with the kind of energy that Ethan Iverson bore on early Bad Plus recordings. But as the composition unfolds, its uniquely thorny structure gives it an endearingly peculiar identity of its own. “Funhouse Memory” also operates in the realm of surprise, morphing directions constantly as it lopes toward a funk groove. The edgy and off-kilter “Bonkers” blends similar quantities of dark tension and humor into a densely arranged piece. But Fox and friends are equally appealing when they explore their softer side. A climactic wave of tension and release dominates “Sterling,” with tumbling drums and colorful bass accents, until each member of the trio gradually falls into an odd but syncopated step. (The track’s jaunty-to-serene flavor is perfectly captured by an accompanying stop-motion animation music video.) The hushed title track, meanwhile, shimmers with feeling as Fox and bassist Chris van Voorst van Beest work around each other in plaintive steps, creating such tight interplay that the notion of comping and soloing become almost irrelevant. A perfect closer, the clothes-dryer-inspired “Tumble Quiet,” ultimately offers a final conclusion to the album’s quirky character.