Toned - The Private Sector

2020 CD release.

TONED may be an electroacoustic trio, but if the term “electroacoustic” suggests something tame from the stodgy contemporary music spectrum, be warned: “The Private Sector” is a deconstructed hellscape of what seems to be some kind of punk-jazz, with maniac “riffs” produced by digital electronics, a drumkit tirelessly assaulting your eardrums, and the cutting action of a schizophrenic alto saxophone. You can’t perceive where the established structures end and free-improvisation begins, because there’s a nonlinear and non-hierarchical organizational process at work, described as a «fractal chimera, generated by multiple layers of compositional feedback loops». Because everything is submitted to a meticulous mastication of materials, corresponding to Tom Weeks’, Nathan Corder’s and Leo Suarez’s «distrust in the canons of present-day art forms and commonly ingested sound principles», even what you vaguely identify as punk (the attitude) and as jazz (the sound) is devoured by the procedures, resulting in a musical praxis you have certainly never heard before.