Ah, but of course -- an accordion trio. After all, the only thing better than one guy playing an accordion is, er, three guys playing accordions. All at once. Now, this is the point where the critic is supposed to say that, believe it or not,
the Motion Trio makes accordion music that people who hate accordion music will love. However, that's just not true. If the thought of an accordion trio makes your fight-or-flight reflex kick in, then sorry, but you're going to hate this album. However, if you don't have anything in particular against the instrument, then you'll probably get a tremendous kick out of it. These three Polish accordion virtuosos can do everything from minimalism ("Tranceaccordion") to instrumental hip-hop, complete with the best fake cutting and scratching since
Tom Morello ("You Dance"), with stops along the way in the land of humorous atonality ("Chinatown") and tone poetry (the rather silly "Fly"). Not everything works perfectly -- "Helicopter" builds lots of tension over the course of its five-and-a-half-minute length, but never really relieves it effectively -- but almost everything here is at least interesting. Recommended. ~ Rick Anderson