Album review: Treppenwitz - Sister in Kith

Matthew Aplin (piano); Tom Riviere (double bass); Steve Hanley (drums) + Nel Begley (spoken word 1 track)

Sister in Kith is the third album from Treppenwitz released by the ever so creative Discus record label. Developed whilst touring in 2018 and 2019 the trio set up their instruments in a friend’s living room, pressed record and played. The resulting quality of both the music and the audio is quite remarkable.

The band's influences according to the liner notes are Bartok, Anthony Braxton and Ornette Coleman. I detected various other styles including church organ music and Monk (Thelonious style rather than Trappist).

The tracks encompass both the fast and furious (Staircase Stomp, Sock Eyed/Loose Lace) with the soft and melancholy (Brave to Swim in this Weather, Dream of a Common Language) My own favourite selection Watching the Arc of Bats begins with Tom Riviere’s slow plucked bass building up the tension alongside Steve Hanley’s subtle drumming, Matthew Aplin’s piano then blends in and the piece morphs into a sweet reflective phase – gentle sparse and lovely my notes say. The album concludes with A Mackerel’s Tale which was inspired by an immersive theatre work by George Buchanan. The poem was written and is performed alongside the trio by Nel Begley and is simply charming.

This a hardly a jazz piano trio in the traditional format although throughout you do get snippets of this classic style. Overall this is a fine album of contemporary improvised jazz drawing on the past masters but spinning its own take to produce a relevant offering for our times. 

Steve H

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