With members from Poland and Chile meeting in the Netherlands to play modern, progressive jazz together, Quantum Trio just released a massive hour-and-a-half-long double album, Duality: Particles & Waves. Besides being of massive scale and tremendous musicianship, Duality is a concept album on the wave-particle duality, an important concept in quantum physics. The first disc, Particles, is focused on the tangible, while the other one, Waves, embodies the ethereal facet of matter and energy. Concretely, the shift is very noticeable on the music itself. As per their own description, Particles contain polyrhythmic tunes and ballads, both undeniably jazz, while Waves draws inspirations from other musical spheres, such as electronic music, post-rock, and punk. The trio’s music is really impressive! The first disc is often reminiscent of German favourites Ikarus – minus the scat –, with their entrancing odd rhythmics and polytonal melodies. Truly, a chef-d’œuvre of modern jazz composition and interpretation. On the second, slightly shorter side, a new world opens up and it sounds like an entirely different band playing, which is at the same time enthralling and disorienting. You’ll quickly get along to the idea, considering just how interesting this part also is. Kicking off with ‘Entanglement’, Waves keeps it interesting and complex, but has a much more modern, electronic music drive to it that is just so much fun to enjoy! Here, the trio experiments a lot more with the sounds of the instruments, notably by using various effects and multiple layers. However different they are, the two sides represent different approaches of the same creative hive-mind. This is a highly ingenious double album that plays with jazz in new and interesting ways. I cannot recommend it enough!

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