Double-bassist Dresser's small group work in the past decade has been outstanding, and he continues his rich vein of form with this release. Like many significant bandleaders in improvised music he is able to gather the right personalities in order to create an expressive ensemble sound in which discipline sits well with individual flourish. As a composer Dresser has a gift for strong melodies that are rousing, if not danceable, but he breaks up arrangements with unpredictable shifts of tempo and harmony that can enter into dark, shadowy territory, as befits the subtext of this album's title, which roundly indicts Trump's regime. If there is a Mingusian and, at times, loosely Hemphillian vibration to the free-boppery it is tightly gripped. The band changes shape skillfully, and the presence of Keir Gogwilt's violin lends both a swooning old school romanticism and arresting modernist edge to the material As for flautist Nicole Mitchell, pianist Joshua White and trombonist Michael Dessen, they are superlative soloists who are able to really bring the music to the boil, but crucially, do not compromise the collective energy. White, in particular, beautifully combines somber chords with short, skittish runs that work very effectively against the distinctly dry, crisp attack of Jim Black's snare drum and Dresser's sturdy bass. Well rooted in several chapters of the history of black music, Dresser's group alternates joy and cynicism, making a piece such as the epic ‘Let Them Eat Paper Towels’ an object lesson in emotionally involving and structurally rich performance Cybercoup is a powerful musical counterblast to current presidential ignominy.