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It's highly appropriate that this endeavor gets its name from such an evocative film (The Man With the Golden Arm). With a here-and-there juxtaposition of mood and atmosphere, Austin's Golden Arm Trio grabs you like a jealous lover in the throes of co-dependency. And you don't mind one bit. Although the trio designation would lead you to believe otherwise, this forever fluctuating collective is really more of an expansive outlet for vanguard pianist/percussionist Graham Reynolds to explore a variety of musical tangents. Besides Reynolds, the only musician appearing on every song is ace tenor sax player Thad Scott. Jazz is the closest genre you can tie this music to, yet the Trio's sometimes discordant intensity leans more toward experimental fringe-dwellers like John Cage and Raymond Scott. That conviction was in full effect at the Trio's SXSW showcase, a jaw-dropping performance that got them banned from the Elephant Room. You see, Reynolds doesn't just play the piano - he attacks it by hitting the strings with mallets, banging the inside of the piano and preparing the strings with various objects. While "Rorschach" sounds a bit like Carl Stalling leading a combo rather than an orchestra, other songs convey both lazy contentment ("Three Inch Golden Lilies") and unbearable grief ("More Sad People"). There's also a pungent stench of New Orleans street funk in the metric drum/sax interplay of "The General" and "Bigwig." "The Rack" offers further evidence of Reynolds' percussive prowess with two empty steel trichloromonof-louromethane barrels (what the hell?). This isn't music for sipping martinis on a Sunday afternoon, but the wide assortment of sounds presented here is as exciting and inspiring as a stroll through a crowded street market replete with exotic fragrances, foods you can't pronounce, and bootleg electronics. -Austin Chronicle

Austin-based composer-bandleader-improviser Graham Reynolds creates, performs, and records music for film, theater, dance, rock clubs, and concert halls, with collaborators ranging from Richard Linklater and Jack Black to DJ Spooky and Jeffrey Zeigler. Graham recently signed with London-based label Fire Records and released his score for Hitchcock’s silent classic, The Lodger, in October 2020.

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