Electric bassist and composer Raphael Malfliet has discovered a new sound for the "guitar trio." Malfliet is a native of Belgium, and has focused the past years on contemporary composition technique and it's interactions with improvisation. His research into graphical scores by composers such as Morton Feldman, Karlheinz Stockhausen and Gyorgi Legeti as well as his many years of involvement with the European, and more recently New York improvising communities, has led directly to his debut album, Noumenon. Finding partners of perfect simpatico, Malfliet uses the intensity and fearless intention of Todd Neufeld's guitar playing, as well as the rich and ego-less palette of Italian-born drummer/ percussionist Carlo Costa to perfect effect. The trio met in 2014 and explored improvisational possibilities.  But, in 2015, together in New York, through an extensive period of rehearsals and discussions, they developed a language for interpreting Malfliet's original compositions, culminating in an excellent analog tape recorded session in the winter months.  Each track on the resulting album explores different structures and angles of an overall unified and highly original artistic statement. Cover artwork is supplied by the famed Ethiopian-born, NY based visual artist Julie Mehretu.  Noumenon is an immersing sound world, full of beauty, intensity and surprise.

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