Get ready to take off as Canada's prog-jazz trio Myriad3, for its third CD, sets its sights on the heart of the Moons (Alma Records). If 2012's Tell and 2014's The Where were any indications, Moons is where they want to be: packed with surprise, voluptuous weirdness, classical gas and an eccentric eclectic no-holds-barred vision of instrumental music run amok.
Born in 2011, Myriad3 is piano/synthesizer wizard Chris Donnelly, upright bassist/fretless synth master Dan Fortin and drummer Ernesto Cervini who doubles on glockenspiel. Together, these three form a trio akin to one bad-ass monster visionary with three heads and six arms.
The gorgeous "Peak Fall" will worm its way into your sweet spot with Donnelly's bass similar in texture and feel to what the late Jaco Pastorius did in his heyday behind Joni Mitchell. It takes over as a lead instrument in a swirling cloudy mix of Monk Mysterioso proportions.
These tracks were road-tested throughout Europe and Japan before being recorded in Toronto. As produced by Peter Cardinal and engineered by John "Beetle" Bailey, the same team who worked on the first two CDs, Moons has many highlights including "Stoner," a meditation of sorts with the kind of changes that surprise and delight. Then there's the sole cover. One would think, at first glance, that Myriad3 would cover pioneering '70s fusion bands Weather Report or Return To Forever but that would be too obvious. Instead, they chose "Counter of the Cumulus" by underground electronica artist Disasterpeace. Suffice it to say, it sounds like Beethoven on LSD, and could have been the soundtrack to the cantina scene in 1977's Star Wars Episode IV: A New Hope.
Tired of the same swing, bebop, fusion, big-band, Dixieland, classical, avant-garde or blues bands? Myriad3 will take you to their Moons for a dose of the future. You may never be the same.
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