Album Reviews

The Wichita and Lawrence, Kansas-based Wrong Kata Trio has been playing together since 2010, though the three have been performing in the area for fifteen years.

According to guitarist and violinist UJ Pesonen, at Kansas City’s Czar Bar before a friendly crowd the band asked the audience how many would buy their upcoming album on vinyl. “Astonishingly”, he wrote me, “almost everyone in the audience raised their hands.”

Not only did the group put the album out on vinyl, they made it the only physical format in which it can be purchased. Buyers do get a 24 bit digital download card (as well as the option for an MP3 download).

Lawrence, Kansas based drummer Brandon Graves is the Head Drumline Instructor at the University of Kansas and the Faculty Percussion Instructor at the Culture House in Olathe, Kansas. In addition to working a full time teaching schedule, Mr. Graves is a Yamaha Artist/Clinician, REMO clinician/educator, a member of the Vic Firth Educational Team and he plays in a number of other groups in addition to Wrong Kata Trio. Bassist Anthony Case and Mr. Pesonen have both recorded with other groups.

While the credits are for drums, bass, guitar and violin, someone’s playing Moog-like synth fills (produced, Mr. Pesonen says played real time by using either guitar or bass effects pedals) on some of the all-instrumental tracks that have more of a mathematical than emotional bent, though the math does produce memorably “groovy” moods and Mr. Pesonen does at times get funky. A good place to start is actually the first song on side two: “How the Robots”.

“Hypnotic head-bobbing music” would be a good way to describe the music, which is built upon ingenious, ever changing variations of repeated patterns. The focus, according to Mr. Pesonen “… has always been to pursue melodies, grooves, sounds, and textures that move us as deeply as possible and hopefully come across to the listener as big ‘audio hugs’ as Anthony has coined them”.

The recording is basic and honest, particularly the way in which the drums were miked and recorded center stage, plenty of room sound and microphone leakage. "Three musicians playing live in a room" is how it sounds.

The Wrong Kata Trio were not wrong in how they produced this vinyl record: Kevin Gray mastered it at Cohearent Audio and it was pressed in Salina, Kansas at QRP on 180g vinyl. With funds limited the recording wasn’t tracked to tape. It was ProTools and sent on DVD to Cohearent at 24 bit/44.1K resolution. Why they couldn’t do 88.2K I don’t know, but the bottom line is that it’s well-recorded, mastered and pressed.

So don’t let the sampling rate be a “deal-breaker”. You can listen to some of the album on the embedded YouTube clip and from there access more of the album. Be assured that the vinyl sounds far better than the YouTube audio! Limited to 500 copies and for now only available through Discogs