Robert Mitchell is a deft, inventive pianist with a unique style of improvisation that finds him riffing on lateral motifs rather than following classic bop influenced lines. His trio, 3io features Mitchell on piano with bassist Tom Mason and drummer Richard Spaven. Their musical relationship goes back almost a decade, and has developed out of Mitchell's larger band ‘Panacea’. Their debut album, The Greater Good, won Best Jazz Album at Gilles Peterson's Worldwide Awards in 2009.
This new album opens with an unlikely cover, 'Alberto Balsam', by Aphex Twin, a great tune which sets the tone for much of what follows, with imaginative recastings of material rubbing shoulders with exhilarating new tunes from the band. Tom Mason’s 'A Desperate Man' draws on his work with singer-songwriter Jono Mcleery and is the result of jamming with McLeery over a bass-line he came up with. Title track 'The Embrace', a composition by Mitchell, uses an offset rhythmic grouping of three in its bass part, and a piano melody which overlaps (embraces) the bass. Elsewhere 'Maz' is an enigmatic original from Spaven originally written for his quintet with singer Jose James, and 'Twice' finds the trio exploring the music of Little Dragon. Finally the album closes with 'Traumerei (Dreams)', a piece by Robert Schumann. Needless to say Mitchell takes the beautiful lullaby on quite a journey just as 3io take us all into a world of never ending musical possibilities: One where we have no choice but to submit to their embrace!
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