There are a great many fine piano trios around. Just this year alone releases by the Ahmad Jamal trio, a posthumous EST recording, and Tingvall Trio have raised the bar very high indeed. While the Jesse Stacken trio from New York may not be quite in their bracket (at least just yet), their third release for Jordi Pujol's FSNT label, a baker's dozen of bagatelles, shows they are a powerful and thoughtful unit with ideas to burn. At concerts Stacken, who also wrote the tunes, says in his notes that the trio plays the bagatelles as a set in the order as heard here. Not really an intense listen, it's still very serious music that would probably be more rewarding in a small recital hall that presents contemporary classical music regularly or at a club where people listen rather than yell across the room at each other. ‘No. 8’, for instance, utilises Schoenberg's 12-tone serial technique. Ungimmicky, it's an album worth discovering, but could do with a greater choice of contrasting tunes.