
Sun of Goldfinger builds upon an enticing web of relationships: David Torn and Tim Berne have worked together since the ‘90s, with the guitarist producing many of the saxophonist’s prolific releases; Ches Smith has worked with Berne in the latter’s quintet Snakeoil and other contexts. In this electrifying trio, Torn, Berne and Smith spontaneously weave intense musical tapestries and craft vast sound worlds of monumental and vividly-textured aural invention. The trio conjures mind-bogglingly intricate and immersive atmospherics that mutate with every performance, blending delicate lyricism and full-throttle noise, bleeding-edge rock and untethered jazz, and leading the way into realms beyond genre.
Across a career as a guitarist, composer, improviser, producer and soundscape artist, David Torn has worked with innovators in jazz (Jan Garbarek, The Bad Plus), film music (Ryuichi Sakamoto, Carter Burwell) and rock (David Bowie, Jeff Beck, David Sylvian). Guitar Player magazine has declared him “one of music’s Top 50 guitarists, ever.” Tim Berne has been declared “a saxophonist and composer of granite conviction” by The New York Times. Since learning at the elbow of St. Louis master Julius Hemphill in the ’70s, the Syracuse, New York-born Berne has built an expansive discography as a leader, assembling pace-setting ensembles with a who’s who of improvisers. Born in San Diego, CA and raised in Sacramento, Ches Smith came up in a scene of punks and metal musicians who were listening to and experimenting with jazz and free improvisation. He has performed and recorded with Xiu Xiu, Secret Chiefs 3 and Marc Ribot’s Ceramic Dog, while leading his own projects, Congs for Brums, These Arches, Made To Break and Clone Row.