(((O))) Review: Sonar with David Torn and J. Peter Schwalm – Three Movements

For 11 years Sonar has channeled listeners by taking them into the abyss with minimal surroundings. Whether you get it or you don’t, the band has always taken a leap forward by pulling you into these exotic worlds. Their latest follow-up Three Movements is the exact opposite.

Following a two-year break due to COVID-19 and the pandemic, Sonar was up for another challenge to make another album with David Torn. And with J. Peter Schwalm in the wings, each of the patterns flow into view by revealing an organic growth, waiting to be unveiled.

Thelen’s compositions starts to rumble, one composition after another. Each of the movements become like a gigantic maze, similar to Stanley Kubrick’s 1980 Horror classic The Shining. Cross-rhythmic beats have kept the clock ticking very rapidly by lending in a terrifying universe that is shocking, intense, and right in your face.

Whether its Torn, Pasquinelli, Wagner, or Kunther, they lend Stephan a helping hand to bring his arrangements to life. Sonar isn’t just a band, but a band of brothers making through the maze until the very end by witnessing what the future will bring as Kunther’s bass brings in more ingredients to the doors of the future.

Once the engines start to rev up in the closing section of the piece, everything turns into a crazed-out articulation as the inmates have taken over the asylum. And when I say taken over the asylum, they rule the nut house with an iron fist.

Sonar has never disappointed me with their releases. They have taken many gauntlets with the sights, the sounds, the complexity, and the challenges they bring into their music. And we got to experience the movements in all of its glory, from start to finish.