You’ll find most piano-bass-drums instrumental line-ups filed under ‘piano trio jazz’ but there’s a collective ethos at work in the Slovenian-Swedish-German ensemble Punkt.Vrt.Plastik that defies conventional roleplay. The tightly-knit interdependency of the trio means you can’t imagine one part working without the other. The currently Denmark-based Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, who received both her informal (improve/jazz) and formal (classical music) education in Amsterdam, formed the band in 2016 with both Berlin-based Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and German drummer Christian Lillinger who were already close collaborators in bands such as Amok Amor with trumpeter Peter Evans.

It’s an exhilarating ride right from the get-go, as all three tightly interlock in a music of percussive freneticism, sharp corners and sudden gear changes that holds ideas and narrative together so well. Draksler’s looping, spidery chromatic motifs and hypnotic child-like melodies meld seamlessly with a bass and drums sonicworld derived from influences that includes inventive electronica and everything from post-hip hop underground beats and video game soundtracks through to free jazz. Their first two recordings were in the studio but this third and first ‘live’ recording at the unerhört!-Festival at Rote Fabrik in Zurich proves to be a perfect platform for their raw, knife-edge intensity in which the electricity between the musicians is palpable. Frenetic tempos can mean its hold-on-to-your-hats time for the most part but a moodier, more harmonically expressive side to the trio comes to the fore on ‘Axon’ and the ambiguously exquisite ‘Morgon Morfin’, a little reminiscent of Belgian trio Der Bieren Gieren and inevitably perhaps The Bad Plus in their more abstract moments.