The music of Typical Sisters is the kind of thing that blends the best of a few genres with the sort of ease that makes reviewers fumble around for descriptions. And while I suppose that the music on the band's new album, Hungry Ghost, out as of yesterday via Outside in Music, could be called jazz, it's also much more than that.
The players here -- guitarist Gregory Uhlmann, bassist Clark Sommers, and drummer Matt Carroll -- imbue each tune here with a lot of melodic invention, and a good deal of improvisational fire. While the title cut is bass-driven in spots, the elegantly propulsive "To The Landing" features a neat interplay between Uhlmann and Carroll, drummer on that superb Ohmme album from last year. The "dialogue" between the two is catchy, as is "Goner", a spry ramble with showcase-moments for each musician here. At their best here, like on closer "Young and Foolish", or the lovely and spacious "Benjamin", this trio touches at something beautiful, music that's appealing to both the heart and the intellect. In that sense, the tunes here are very jazzy indeed, with flashes of the sort of thing that made so many people devotees of the ECM label artists.
Hungry Ghost is out now via Outside in Music.
More details on Typical Sisters via the band's official website, or their official Facebook page.
[Photo: Maren Celest]