TKE consists of drummer Caleb Dolister, bassist Gael Petrina and saxophonist Warren Walker. For 10 years, the trio has been rening their approach towards instrumental composition and production. Their music is multi-textural, adventurous, dark and rhythmic; it can be equally lled with risk and cohesion while navigating atypical time structures. Petrina and Walker’s appreciation for electronica inspires their methodical use of eect pedals to create lush dimensions of texture, and Dolister’s open admiration of heavier bands like Meshuggah or crossover projects like Jaga Jazzist often inuences a rigor and attack in his drumming paired with polyrhythmic complexity.
Despite the challenges of not easily identifying with a specic genre, there are clear undertones of Pop, Rock, and several avors of Electronica. But before any genre is applied, the primary focus is always on composition, as often most of the pieces are composed from the rst note to the last. This helps a project rooted in jazz to never come o as unintentional, lost in direction, dissonant or arrhythmic. Instead, most pieces will identify less with the avant-garde than will Pop. Each band member comes from strong background founded on improvisation and jazz-studies, and there are many opportunities for the songs to open up for solos or playful group exploration. But it is with maturity and experience that they manage to sound like a band fully realizing a solid musical vision,
rather than a band grasping toward one.