I see this a lot and assume you do as well:
Say you're at a show, and during the sound check, you hear the guitarist noodling around with some really interesting feedback, or pedal combinations, or delayed loops of various non-tonal counterpoint, or all of the above; and it's more exciting than his normal work. Then the band takes the stage, and it's the stuff from the latest album sans spruces of the aforementioned imaginative magic. Why does that guitarist save the cool stuff for home? Why won't he figure out a way to transform duality into versatility? Can't he find some like-minded counterparts to share his passion? I might hate this guy.
Chris Corsano is so unique because he's made a career of being multifaceted, performing a baker's score of instruments with a host of different ensembles, and he knows how to incorporate this experience with whomever he plays, particularly solo — being on a short list of the world's fastest, most dexterous drummers is also a selling point of his artistic charisma.
Based on Door to Door, Kim-Erik Pedersen and guitarist Kim Johannesen drink from the same waters: as a trio, these three musicians (here live in 2009 at the Norwegian Academy of Music where Pedersen is a master's student) synchronize an integration of extended flavors and feral groove-heavy passages without a lull or anyone trying to steal the show, which considering how intensely detailed, opinionated and all-over-the-place these guys are, is wondrous.
With the first sudden barking crash of "Paying Top Dollar for Old Dirt", you brace yourself in anticipation of the unknown, as timbre after style after dissonance-into-consonance floods your ears. Pedersen honks as Corsano squeaks drum heads with fingers, tape and his own reeds, Johannesen staggering in a muted blur of strings and ascending arpeggiations before lashing out with meditative clouds of distortion; Corsano meets this with languid hi-hat taps and rustling junk yard metals. The trio pours into a passage whose flash of danger, volume (in both senses) and limited-yet-colorful palette resembles the initial buckling moments of a trailer park at the mercy of a tornado (or similar to a freer Coltrane and Ali on the speedy moments of Interstellar Space). The group is able to sustain this bluster, even adding to it when there doesn't seem more to give, then steps away; though they might now work in the rubble, culling the smithereens, this is not a release, but a different direction of tension and never a "crap, what do we do now?" situation. They begin each of the three works with this accelerated microbial growth — cells that always produce a juggernaut — with a similar skill set of tricks. But the recurring themes are the formal shapes and quiet loud quiet, not a repetition of micro-details, as each man chokes his instrument extensions to the last breath.
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