“5 Million Pesos” is the monthly concert series by RadioKulturhaus Vienna and the Ö1 jazz department. The featured act in June 2023 is KO.AX, performing on June 15th in Vienna’s RadioCafe.
The music of the trio KO.AX, as presented on their sophomore release Immersion (2023), could be described as a giant postmodern playground: complex grooves combined with repetitive figures, twelve-tone structures, poppy keyboard sounds, and dissonant clusters yield a music full of surprises – though, it must be said, the flowing, palatable sound is reminiscent now and then of the renowned Esbjörn Svensson trio or that of bassist Avishai Cohen.
The musicians of KO.AX, all from Tyrol, have been playing and composing together since 2015; they released their first album, Loose Frames, in 2017. After studying together at the Bruckner University in Linz, each of them has made a name for himself individually: pianist Lukas Leitner plays in Ulrich Drechsler‘s project Azure and the collective Little Rosie’s Kindergarten; bassist Walter Singer is a founding member (with Mira Lu Kovacs) of Schmieds Puls and Memplex, a quintet with trumpeter Mario Rom and saxophonist Werner Zangerle, and Lukas Laimer has performed with the London-based Tyrolean hang player Manu Delago.
Together, with impressive nonchalance, the three musicians are carrying the illustrious tradition of the jazz piano trio into the future. Not to be missed!
Concert: June 15th at 8pm, RadioCafe
In cooperation with the Ö1 jazz department.
Translated from the German original by Philip Yaeger.