Album Review: Are Possible by Nathan Bowles

In the West, improvisation tends to be built around the intricate harmony complexity of jazz, with players laying out the melody, outlining the chord changes, and then blasting off with freewheeling improvisations designed to show off their individuality and personal prowess. In America, soloing is like signing your name across the stars, writ large beside the heroes and immortals. Improvisation can be a group activity, though, a collective exercise for cracking through mundane reality to find the shining manna of nature, the elements, and the ties that bind us together and make us human.

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Photo by Asia Harman The Nathan Bowles Trio whips a buggy wagon onto interstellar highways, hammering rustic grooves into motorik repetition until they lift out of the past into the endless now. The trio first convened on Bowles' 2018 album Plainly Mistaken pushing traditional instruments--banjo for Bowles, string bass for Casey Toll and drums for Rex McMurry--into sprawling psychedelic spaces. Are Possible is sparer but no less adventurous, paring back motifs to essence, locking them in for extended intervals, and allowing repetition to make them flower.

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