David Torn is a guitarist-composer and a long-standing ECM artist. He has released two albums under his name, the solo only sky, and the quartet disc prezens, and has also produced highly acclaimed records by Michael Formanek and Tim Berne. Sun of Goldfinger sees Torn return in a trio with Berne, the alto saxophonist, and Ches Smith (a member of Berne’s Snakeoil band that made his ECM leader debut with The Bell in 2016). Sun of Goldfinger’s Torn/Berne/Smith trio also features on two of the album’s three intense tracks of over 20 minutes. The vast sonic tapestries of the songs “Eye Meddle”, and “Soften the Blow” are a result of only three musicians weaving them. Torn and Smith expand the aural envelope with live electronics. The third track, Torn’s Spartan, features an extended ensemble featuring two additional guitars, keyboards, and a string quartet. It s an extraordinary creation that ranges from ethereal atmospherics to dark-hued lyrics to storming, heart-rending grandeur to hovering atmospherics. LondonJazz’s review of Sun of Goldfinger live is also a fitting one: “This music is dangerous music at times mad, at other blissed out and illuminating… delivering more of a wave of sound than a flood of sound, more like a tidal waves.” From bandcamp
