The NYC-based trio GRID will release their self-titled debut via NNA Tapes on March 24th and today we listen to the lead track “(+/+)“. The group includes Matt Nelson (Battle Trance) on saxophone, Tim Dahl (Child Abuse) on bass, and Nick Podgurski (New Firmament, Feast of the Epiphany) on drums, and while their improvisational approach is inspired by free jazz, the trio brings diverse styles like acid rock and doom into the equation making for a heavy and complex music.
From the get-go “(+/+)” is charged with a darkly resonating sound that brings to mind something like Throbbing Gristle’s Heathen Earth as atmospheres of urban dread amass into a paranoid stew. Eventually, Nelson’s saxophone enters the proceedings and its’ piercing cries join the anguished howl of Dahl’s low end. Brings to mind that time the venerable old shaman Don Juan Matus told his student Carlos Castaneda that the only thing he needed to fear in the whole universe was “existential sadness”. The wind of that blows something fierce through “(+/+)”.
