Producer and synthesizer player
Luke Abbott, drummer
Laurence Pike, and saxophonist Jack Wyllie take a step farther out for their second album as
Szun Waves. At Sacred Walls, released in 2016, was created in three days and edited by
Abbott. The improvised material for their daringly titled follow-up, recorded on two dates in 2016 and 2017, received no such treatment, simply mixed, mastered, and sequenced. The three musicians interact here like they'd be equally comfortable in churches and planetariums and have the track titles and evocations to match. "High Szun" spirals upward as it works itself into a glaring blast of near cacophony. "Temple" features Wyllie in movingly mournful form, with
Abbott at one point nearly drowning him out with aqueous rippling amid
Pike's tensest interjections. The trio is often content to hover, swirl, and dissolve without resolution, saving only the last quarter of the 12-minute title cut for a truly needling rhythm and Wyllie's primal squeal. ~ Andy Kellman