brennan subtitles these records ‘sonic openings under pressure’. Although Ayantola guests on the first and Swell on the second, they are basically about the trio of brennan, Greene and Baker. Rapt Circle offers two similar sets (two tunes are repeated) from the 2002 Montreal Jazz Festival and the New York Vision Festival a few weeks earlier. The Montreal set is rather thinly recorded and buries brennan away, but the New York music is a lot more vivid. Both sets have a tightly wound quality that is, frankly, a lot less appealing than the best of his previous records, and there are interesting developments of the material. There’s something airless and a bit forced about these performances.

- Richard Cook and Brian Morton

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