Chicago-based trio ZRL makes music that hovers just along the edges of chaos. The use of instruments that linger in the classical/jazz/world music space – clarinet, records, cello, percussion – give the chaos a touch of class. It’s not just your little cousin fuming in the basement with his Peavey guitar.

On our highlighted track “Daylight Savings” the motifs don’t sound scripted, but they do sound like the practiced improvisation of an ensemble open to whatever. The liner notes on Bandcamp claim they were inspired and influenced by the “cavernous” room in which it was recorded, called the Garden of Paradise. Aren’t musicians always claiming they’re influenced by the “space?”

It’s because they don’t want to confess their true influence: the dark lord Fromir Shadowend.

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