By Bill Meyer | Published January 2026
When the Borderlands Trio went on hiatus in 2024, two-thirds of its complement was not ready to quit. In short order bassist Stephan Crump and drummer Eric McPherson found a new third person, and Otherlands Trio came into being. Replacing pianist Kris Davis with the tonally adventurous and emotionally authentic alto saxophonist Darius Jones ensures that certain things will not be the same, but one essential quality persists. While all three members are credited with creating the music, and they did so in real time, they do not consider themselves to be a free-improv ensemble, but spontaneous composers. The difference likes in a commitment to cohesion; they may not know what they’re going to play when they start, but each participant will make sure that they have the other two’s backs.
On the opening track of this studio recording, “Metamorphene,” this shared purpose manifests in a bass-drums groove that continually morphs but never quits, which enables Jones to pursue a series of short, cork-screwing lines wherever they might lead. Jones once more finds freedom in the locked-in quality of the Julius Hemphill-like rhythm that begins “Lateral Line,” but he’s ready to melt his own tone into Crump’s to create a single stream of sound during the track’s second half. Likewise, the saxophonist’s pops and McPherson’s staccato patterns at the beginning of “Diadromous” sound like the work of one hybrid drum kit.
Star Mountain necessarily sounds different from the three albums that McPherson and Crump made with Davis, but it sustains that project’s creative streak.
