The timing wasn’t intentional on my part, but I’m so glad I ended up writing this track review after seeing Colin Pulkrabek‘s set at our Ball of Wax 71 celebration last week. (By the way, here is your reminder that Ball of Wax 71 is out and available for sale and you should probably buy it right now.) Before witnessing his performance, I would not have fully appreciated his live compositional technique, which incorporates not only layers of throaty, full-bodied trombone and delightful self-harmonizing melodies, but some highly impressive beatboxing. I had wondered before where the beat in this track came from, but it did not occur me that all of these sounds were, indeed, coming from his bo-ody (but, you know, actually good).
“Trichiliocosm” is, as with so many of the short pieces in this collection, just a tiny taste of what this artist can do with a looper, his instrument, and his beautiful musical brain. At the show he mentioned he hadn’t done a set like this in a decade, and I sincerely hope he gives us another chance to experience this work in person again sooner than that. If we ask really nice, maybe he’ll at least release some more recordings along these lines.