Twin Talk

There are no actual twins in the Chicago jazz trio Twin Talk, but the heightened level of nonverbal communication that twins often share, cryptophasia, is the group’s holy grail. Saxophonist Dustin Laurenzi, drummer Andrew Green, and bassist and vocalist Katie Ernst have long been key players in Chicago’s intertwined improvisational communities. But since they started Twin Talk in 2012, the three have steadily developed an internal sense of song and structure, using repetition of melodic and rhythmic fragments to create blessed moments of release in pieces that evolve in real time. “The mountain that we keep climbing is trying to be in that pure form of three-person communication,” Ernst once told DownBeat. “We kind of jump right in and skip the formalities of small talk.”

Recorded during a three-day stand of short sets in Chicago, 2024’s Twin Talk Live is a stunning testament to this rapport. During the hypnotic “North,” Green seems to drift with his drums, Ernst’s bowed bass floating between him and Laurenzi’s languid lines like air. But every time the trio lulls you into its trap, the song shifts into, say, little pockets of pointillism or a span that sounds like a punch-drunk chamber ensemble. In 2019, Twin Talk released Weaver, recorded at the Wisconsin headquarters of Bon Iver. (Laurenzi was part of that band for a spell.) The chance to overdub and make a proper studio record seemed to be a permission slip to dig even deeper into the moment onstage, as heard on Live. Inspired by West African musical interplay and math-rock musical interdependence, Twin Talk is a compelling product of intense listening and sympathetic response.