The trio PGT cheekily refers to itself as the “only double latop/acoustic mandolin ensemble in the world.” One would hope after a listen to its recent release, Wood Lake, on the netlabel stasisfield.com, that other musicians might follow in its tracks. The ensemble’s members, whose initials lend it its acronym-free abbreviation of a name (Terence M. Pender, Brad Garton, Gregory Taylor), pursue a zone of ambient music that is ethereal and textural in varying ratios. Of the album’s three tracks, the opening one, “Wood Lake 1,” is the most placid. The most revealing, though, is the second, “Wood Lake 2,” a region of plectrum space music that brings to mind the more attenuated experimental formula explored by the Grateful Dead: picked riffs that circulate like loose material floating in a current that in turn lends it shape, a current that’s provided here by the accompanying duo’s gentle laptop synthesis (MP3).
Album available for free download and streaming at stasisfield.com.
A pleasant discovery. Thank you.