TAUPE - Waxing/Waning

After six years of recording silence, the indomitable free-jazz and avant-rock trio Taupe return to the fray with their new album "Waxing/Waning". It's the first work made with new drummer Alex Palmer – a fixture at the band's countless live shows in recent years – who has replaced original member Adam Stapleford. The trio is rounded out by Mike Parr-Burman (guitar, bass, electronics) and Jamie Stockbridge (alto and baritone sax).
The long stretch of time between "Not Blue Light" and the Scottish band's third album has given the new arrival time to sharpen his tools and settle into the trio's free-jazz, math-rock and experimental geometries, giving further momentum to Taupe's murky, abrasive and deceptively anarchic sound.

Zu, Melt Banana, Horse Lords, Trio VD and John Zorn are the likely reference points for framing an album like "Waxing/Waning". Yet it would be reductive to tie Taupe's musical forays purely to jazz-rock forms already explored elsewhere: the trio's real strength lies in its millimetre-precise interlocking parts, always ready to explode and branch off in multiple directions without ever losing sight of a creative ethic, particularly evident in the wild, over-seven-minute vortex of "Anti-Bird-Spike-Bird-Nest".

That the trio's music can be unpredictable at times is confirmed by the electronic-jazz minimalism of "Allcapsallbold", a track that morphs into heavy, dark jazz, a collage of avant-jazz and doom-metal that leaves no survivors on the field. The band's almost radical vision is a source of acoustic unease ("Pet Boss") and curious pop and rock contaminations, with guitar scrapes drawing on trivial lexical cues – like the name of an old video game – to disorient and entertain the listener ("Lemonade Tycoon").
"Waxing/Waning" is the result of a musical search that, much like Goat, starts from free-jazz, passes through no wave and embraces new currents in experimental rock; an exploration that, while not adding anything new, remains remarkable for its good dose of ideas and atypical creative flourishes.

The acid noir steeped in avant-jazz and non-jazz fumes of the title track gives rise to an immersive sonic experience, one that perhaps demands rather too much attention from the listener, dragging them into a vortex where all that remains may seem either too trivial or liberating. Taupe never resort to conciliatory language, not even when they tap into motorik grooves ("Turn, Push, Kick").
There's authority and creativity in these seven containers of madness and imagination that make up the Scottish trio's new album. "Waxing/Waking" is an intriguing, disturbing, deliberately disjointed record, yet fairly accessible to anyone versed in jazz, microtonal rock and math-rock: an interesting alternative to today's overly accommodating neo-jazz mixtures, and an excellent confirmation for the band.

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09/07/2026