The album opens with the upbeat and joyful Strom (meaning stream, current or flow), the catchy The Blank Canvas Part 1 features guitarist James Muller and enhances the albums sense of journey and movement as we set out on our Fact Finding Mission with the trio. The delicate and captivating Lullaby, was written by Parker for his sons. The title track is the most abstract work on the album and utilizes samples, bowed distorted bass, a range of Chinese gongs and other sounds to achieve its chaotic effect. The second track on the album to be inspired by the band’s children, the playful Song For EV, was written for Foran’s daughter and has a delightful rhythmic suppleness. On Civil Unrest (featuring guitarist James Muller and percussionist Tunji Beier) angular melodies and abstract harmonies meld with spacious free improvisations. While The Brook is all about rhythm; contrasting the idea of a dark intense bass groove with a delicate sparse melody. The captivating, rhythmic The Blank Canvas Part 2 transports us through to the beautiful Brick By Brick, which features DVA (Tunji Beier on percussion and Linsey Pollak on reeds) and draws on Eastern European folk melodies alongside modern jazz harmonic movements and freely improvised elements. Pollak’s reeds weave in and out of the trio sounds with Beier’s percussion adding another layer of rhythmic complexity. Dense, but melodically clear, it's a beautiful closer to the album with its sense of melodic finality and earthy folk ideas. It’s this blend of earthy rhythms, beautiful melodies and the freedom of jazz that makes Trichotomy’s Fact Finding Mission so worth joining!

FACT FINDING MISSION is available on CD, Download (incl. Hi Def), VINYL and score book. Click HERE for store

released 04 February 2013
Sean Foran - piano
John Parker - drums
Pat Marchisella - bass

with special guests:
James Muller - Guitar - Tracks 2/6/8
Linsey Pollak - Reeds - Track 9
Tunji Beier - Percussion - Tracks 6/9

Produced by Trichotomy
Recorded by Chris Vallejo at Linear Recording Sydney July 16-20 2012
Mixed by Chris Vallejo & John Parker at Linear Recording
Mastered by Dave Gardner at Magneto Mastering Minneapolis

Art Direction and design by Paul Underwood

Tracks 1, 2, 5, 7-9 composed by S Foran
Tracks 3, 4, 6 composed by J Parker
All tracks arranged by Trichotomy


   Read full album reviews NAIM JAZZ.

 The Gentle War, is the superb new album from Australian piano trio Trichotomy and the follow-up to the band’s critically acclaimed Naim Jazz debut Variations. Recorded shortly after the band’s UK tour early last year it finds the lauded trio in especially dynamic form and while their music could be compared to the likes of EST or The Bad Plus, Foran also cites his time here as an influence on the music - and not just our beer, but bands such as label mates Neil Cowley Trio, John Taylor and Acoustic Ladyland - but The Gentle War is very much the sound of a band developing their own unique sound.

The Gentle War finds the band happily building on the success of Variations but is more tightly focused on the trio itself. Mixed by Brent Sigmeth (The Bad Plus) the album brings a rockier edge to the mix but without compromising on the beauty of the piano sound. It’s an aural reflection of the band’s music, what one critic called their ‘juxtaposition of aggressiveness and tenderness’. Indeed it is this friction which is at the heart of the band’s appeal: Their music is both densely rhythmic and sharply melodic, with Foran’s excellent compositions seeking a balance between heavily notated sections and completely free improvisations and with the trio allowing ideas to develop naturally.

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 Inspired by a diverse range of influences from Aphex Twin to Vijay Iyer, and Tortoise to The Bad Plus, Trichotomy’s music combines a dense rhythmic focus with the melodic clarity of a Pat Metheny, Brad Mehldau or Stravinsky and like fellow Australians The Necks, whom they cite as an early influence, there is a remarkable attention to detail and a desire to allow ideas to develop naturally within their music. A key focus is the balance between piano/bass/drums, with the trio maintaining a free flowing three way conversation with no one dominating and all contributing integral parts. Compositions often find a fine balance between heavily notated sections then completely free improvisations.

”Variations” their third album, and the first to be released internationally, features a variety of melodic and rhythmic landscapes, with the relaxed structures of Foran and Parker’s intimate songwriting decorated by the group’s spontaneous musicality. The 'variations' come from the mood and texture created by the intuitive interplay between the three members of Trichotomy and the subtle balance between delicate textural explorations and vigorous driving pieces. They shift effortlessly from beautifully subtle ballads such as ‘Please’ and ‘Ascent’ to the densely ferocious ‘Chunk’ (where Marchisella's bass sounds more like a distorted electric guitar), ‘The Unknown’ whose disjointed rhythms sound completely natural, and ‘Variations on a bad day’ which moves from single piano notes to dense polyrhythmic phrases in a fraction of a second.


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