Experimental guitarist Aaron Myers-Brooks, on loan from Pittsburgh post-metal outfit Night Vapor, slants toward the “avant” in avant-jazz on Conduits, the third EP he has self-released in the past 14 months.
Musical notes seem to trip over their own feet on the three-song recording, where Myers-Brooks’ angular guitar work is pristinely accompanied by piano, bass, synth and prepared percussion. The appropriately titled opener, “Stumbling Through,” and the jittery “Fugue” sound like a frayed nerve with too much caffeine surging through it, while the moody “Liquid” waxes elegiac. Bizarre time signatures abound.
Myers-Brooks’ solo work, which is classically tuned and echoes Orthrelm as much as it does Trevor Dunn’s Trio Convulsant, might not always be for mainstream ears, but that doesn’t make it any less enthralling. – Pittsburgh City Paper, Sept. 20, 2017
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