Chris Cochrane is an American, Brooklyn-based songwriter and guitarist who has been active in the New York free scene since the eighties and has played with Thurston Moore, Zeena Parkins, John Zorn, Marc Ribot, Mike Patton, Henry Kaiser, Andrea Centazzo, and many more. Gían Pérez is a guitarist and multi-hyphenate artist from Puerto Rico currently based in Brooklyn, whose work focuses on the subversion, elucidation, and fermentation of forms. Stan Zenkov is an American, Brooklyn-based reed player. The Cochrane Pérez Zenkov trio sounds nothing like Crosby, Stills and Nash, though they’re similarly collaborative.

The free improvised debut album of the Cochrane Pérez Zenkov trio was recorded live at the legendary Downtown Music Gallery in January 2025, and mastered and edited by fellow guitarist Elliott Sharp, who released the album on his zOaR label.

Sharp finds parallel lines between the uncompromising, raw, subversive, and intense aesthetic of Cochrane Pérez Zenkov to the early releases of the German FMP label, or the heavy, free jazz meets free-improv of New York band Borbetomagus. This trio produces a heavy, nervous ambient that insists that «Silencing Never Works» (as the second piece is titled). It is a volatile, noisy blend of broken electric guitars, distant radio voices, and various treed instruments, including the exotic Salvic wind instrument zhaleika, and the Balkan double flute dvojnice. So far, our computers do not dream, but if ever they do, most likely these dreams will sound like these out-of-tune harmolodics.

Eyal Hareuveni

Chris Cochrane (guitar), Gian Pérez (guitar), Stan Zenkov (bass clarinet, alto saxophone, zhaleika, dvojnice, preparations)