Music Outpost

For the experimental electro-acoustic, sonic arts/jazz trio Ergo, jazz is a forum for surprising sounds, startling textures, and gently enthralling improvisation. The ensemble continues to astonish, delivering music that investigates strange and unexpected spaces while inviting listeners into the process. 

Ergo seamlessly interweaves jazz and electronica to create music of stark melodic beauty, enveloping texture, and sonic spaciousness. The New York City based group consists of musicians who have played together in various forms since 2003: composer/leader Brett Sroka on trombone and laptop, Carl Maguire on Rhodes electric piano and analog synth, and Shawn Baltazor on drums. Time Out-NY noted that the three “are all part of a generation for which Autechre and Sigur Ros are as pressing concerns as Armstrong and Sun Ra. That's certainly evident in the band's timbral sophistication, spacey contours and slinky grooves." Drawing from Post-Rock as well as post-Coltrane, remaining oblivious to boundaries of genre or form, and assembling trombones, electronic circuits, drumskins and synths as sonic components on an infinitively textured instrumental palette, Ergo resculpts and edits a widely diverse and musical heritage into a starkly beautiful, and truly ‘cool’ 21st Century sonic jazz form. 

In many ways, Ergo is the sum of its manifestly creative parts. Raised in Lexington, Mass., Brett Sroka studied with trombone greats Britt Woodman and Steve Turre at Manhattan School of Music, where he earned a BA in 1997 and pursued his own compositional studies by dissecting dozens of Duke Ellington scores. 

Sroka made his recording debut as a leader with 2002’s impressive Fresh Sound-New Talent CD Hearsay, a stellar sextet session  featuring rising young masters Jason Moran, Eric Harland and trumpeter Avishai Cohen. Shortly after the album’s release, electronic music captured his imagination, and Sroka immersed himself in synthesizers and software seeking, he explained, “to reconcile 600 years of technology between the trombone and computer.” In addition to Ergo, he is a member of the psych/noise/rock collective 12,000 Trees, and a prolific film composer.

Ergo came together in 2005 when Sroka was working with a cadre of similarly-inclined musicians, unconcerned about genre conventions and performing in venues such as Mercury Lounge, 55 Bar and Galapagos with audiences open to musical exploration. Evolving out of these musically permissive forums, Ergo released its 2006 debut album Quality Anatomechanical Music on its own Actuator label, an album lauded as the year’s best debut CD by All About Jazz-NY. The original lineup featured Sroka on trombone and computer, Carl Maguire on Rhodes electric piano, Prophet Synthesizer and effects and drummer Damion Reid (best known for his work with Robert Glasper, Greg Ward and Rudresh Mahanthappa).

http://www.cuneiformrecords.com/bandshtml/ergo.html

http://www.ergoisaband.com