Radical Empathy Trio features the prolific improvisers keyboardist Thollem McDonas, guitarist Nels Cline, and drummer Michael Wimberly. Following up on their 2015 self-titled effort on Relative Pitch Records, the trio is readying their Reality and Other Imaginary Places LP for release on October 25th via ESP-Disk. Featuring the two long-form tracks “Collective Tunnels” and “Conscious Tunnels,” the cuts were recorded during Thollem’s 2017 residency in Brooklyn at Pioneer Works.
Combining an improvisational prowess that unites the trio’s interest in free jazz and experimental noise, Reality and Other Imaginary Places continues their genre-defying approach. The record is the fourth collaboration between McDonas and Cline, with a fifth effort coming next year on ESP-Disk. Both players bring expansive careers, with McDonas having released sixty-plus records on over twenty-two different labels, while Cline has played with everyone from Wilco to Anthony Braxton. For his part, drummer Michael Wimberly cut his teeth with the Charles Gayle bands and Steve Coleman & Five Elements in the early ’90s, and his free style of drumming is a buoyant accompaniment to Thollem and Cline’s wild improvisations.
Below, you can watch a video accompaniment to a portion of the “Collective Tunnels” track. Directed by Thollem’s long-time visual collaborator ACVilla, the visuals composite various image sources into some really intriguing perceptual puzzles. Meanwhile, the trio’s improvisations bubble and burn into strange new shapes right before your very ears!
