The Fred Frith Trio comprises English guitarist Fred Frith, American bassist Jason Hoopes, and American drummer/percussionist Jordan Glenn. Frith was a founding member of the English avant-rock group Henry Cow, and from 1999 has been teaching musical improvisation at Mills College in Oakland, California. Hoopes and Glenn are members of the Oakland experimental song group Jack O' The Clock. The Fred Frith Trio formed in Oakland in 2013 and began playing at several local live venues. In February 2015 the trio toured Europe, performing in Croatia, Germany, Austria, Hungary, Italy, The Netherlands and Belgium. They toured Europe again in February 2017, performing in Norway, Austria, Turkey, France, Poland, Italy and Germany. Frith said "When I proposed this trio I had nothing in mind beyond getting together with a couple of formidable musicians who I love and respect and seeing what would happen". It was not until after their first European tour that "some themes... start emerging". Frith explained that he found himself drawing on his "earliest rock and roll experiences", and with Hoopes' "stunning ability to wring every-thing there is to be wrung out of an electric bass" and Glenn's "playful, irreverent, and absolute authority... nything can happen. Really. It's a bloody great feeling. I think this record captures it quite well!"
Reception
In a review in All About Jazz, Glenn Astarita described Another Day in Fucking Paradise as a "hardcore off-centered delicacy". He wrote that at the heart of the album Hoopes' "bursting e-bass lines", Glenn's "vigorous drumming and colorful accents", and Frith's "speed riffing unearthly effects" create a "deviously entertaining" mix with "ethereal sound-shaping paradigms throughout." Astarita said that fans of Frith's experimental rock trio Massacre will enjoy this album. In Jazz Views, Chris Baber called the album "an exhilarating and explosive kicking against the doors of improvised music". He said that while the Trio appears to continue where Massacre left off, they sound very different: Hoopes' "rich... bass playing... gives the music so much depth", Glenn's drumming "finds rhythmic complexity in even the darkest corners of each piece", and Frith "continues to delight in making an intelligent racket". Izzy Yellen wrote in a review in DownBeat magazine that on Another Day the Trio creates an "often dense improvisational soundscape" that is "complex and multifaceted never veers toward excess". He said the album is "ot for the faint of heart", and "pushes the listener toward the brink of sensory overload", but added that it will "leave tripped out and travel-weary, but ultimately in a better place".
Track listing
All tracks composed by the Fred Frith Trio. Sources: Intakt Records, Discogs, AllMusic.
Recorded at Sharkbite Studios, Oakland, California, January 2016; mixed at Guerrilla Recording and mastered at Headless Buddha, Oakland, California, March 2016.
