Battle Trance is a tenor sax quartet led by the Brooklyn-based musician Travis Laplante (Little Women, Laplante/Dunn/Smith, etc.), and the group will have a vinyl release of Laplante’s album long composition Palace of Wind on August 26th via NNA Tapes/New Amsterdam Records. While the creative impetus for Palace of Wind lies in the transformative and “healing” power of sound, the composition also requires athletic performers, as it is built around long periods of circular breathing and intricate key fingerings. The band reports that an intense training regimen had to be followed just to play the 42 minute piece, and that besides building themselves up to endure Palace of Wind‘s physical demands, the quartet, which also includes Matthew Nelson, Jeremy Viner, and Patrick Breiner, spent particular time learning to meld their playing into extended tonal drones, and that this “meditative” process was key in establishing the power of their music.
Much of this quickly becomes evident on the amazing opening track “Palace of Wind I“. After briefly tuning up with two short woven threads of tone, the cut falls briefly to silence before starting in on a haunting percolation of multi-phonic sound that, as it grows and increases in speed, becomes an engulfing sonic swarm reminiscent of the Moroccan trance music of the Master Musicians of Joujouka! Battle Trance will head out on a US tour this fall in support of the new record, and for those of you in the Emerald City, this will include a Seattle date at the fantastic Ear Shot Jazz Festival! Cant’t wait!!
Sept. 1st- Kittery, ME @ The Buoy
Sept. 2nd- Burlington, VT @ Jenke Arts
Sept. 3rd- Montreal, Quebec @ Casa Del Popolo
Sept, 4th- Ottawa, Ontario @ Mugshots
Sept. 5th- Toronto, Ontario @ Array Space
Sept. 6th- Cleveland, OH @ Now That’s Class
Sept. 7th- Chicago, IL @ Constellation
Sept. 8th- Detroit, MI @ Trinosophes
Sept. 9th- Kalamazoo, MI @ TBA
Sept. 10th- Oberlin, OH @ Oberlin University
Sept 11th- Buffalo, NY @ Silo Sessions
Sept, 24th- Brooklyn, NY @ Roulette
Sept. 26th- Baltimore, MD @ The Red Room
Oct. 30th- Vancouver, BC @ Emerald Lounge
Nov. 1st – Seattle, WA @ Earshot Jazz Festival
Nov. 2nd- Portland, OR @ Habesha Lounge
November 4th- Sacramento, CA @ TBA
November 5th- San Fransico, CA @ Center For New Music
November 6th- Oakland, CA @ TBA
November 7th- Los Angeles, CA @ Equitable Vitrines
November 20th- Philadelphia, PA @ The Rotunda
