Good chemistry drives the band Phonosynthesis

January 22, 2015 11:00 pm • Last Updated: January 23, 2015 10:01 am

By Rick Koster
Day Arts/Features writer

From left: Jon Dostou, Seth Botos and Isaac Young of Phonosynthesis.

The great British progressive band Gentle Giant was decidedly aware that the complexity of their music was frequently beyond the comprehension of the average rock audience. In fact, they once toured with a huge neon-sign backdrop that simply read PRETENTIOUS.

Yes, there was a whimsical, tongue-in-cheek element to that proclamation, but the story does serve to illustrate a problem many schooled musicians and composers face: how to remain true to their own chops and vision while simultaneously engaging the audience. After all, while there's certainly satisfaction in virtuosity for the sake of it, most bands rely on and feed off of the crowd reaction as a valued part of the artistic equation.

Case in point: the Hartford-based jazz-funk-rock trio Phonosynthesis, who perform tonight in New London's Oasis Pub. Comprised of three conservatory trained musicians - Isaac Young (keys, sax, EWI), Jon Dostou (bass, vocals) and Seth Botos (drums) - Phonosynthesis delight in pushing each other's creative boundaries while, at the same time, provoking, entertaining and engaging their growing legion of dance-happy fans.

"It's never fair for us to assume what the audience knows or doesn't know, musically, so it's important in terms of composition to step back and see if what we're writing is too weird," Dostou says. "It can also come down to where you place a piece of music in a set, or how you add something in the show to keep it interesting so the audience wants to take out their phones. The idea is to put yourself in their place." He laughs. "Otherwise, it would be way too weird if it was just left up to us."

Young agrees. "There's a time and place for a so-called intellectual audience. But we also want to appeal to a wider audience. You can tell if they're getting into it and can sort of take the temperature of the room and tell if it's positive or negative. And you can edit accordingly."

Young and Dostou started working together in 2011 in the Isaac Young Quartet, a highly regarded jazz outfit that fused bebop with pop melodies. The band toured New England and New York extensively and twice won Best Jazz Act trophies at the Connecticut Music Awards. While Phonosynthesis started as a side project for the two to write in a new direction, the group became a creative priority. In early 2013, the pair released the well-received "Staved Eve" album. Botos came aboard to help out with live performances, and the trio began to successfully tour in an increasingly larger area.

"We want to explore and meld styles beyond what you'd normally expect with jazz and rock and funk," Young says. "It's been an incredible experience. With each piece we write, we surprise ourselves because we're doing new things and you can hear the conservational thread of our musical voices."

While the instantly infectious tunes on "Staved Eve" bubble with wit, groove and energy, it's clear in a live context how much the recorded structures serve as mere trampolines for Dostou, Botos and Young to leap into the unknown night after night. Depending on the crowd energy, the song and the musicians' collective and spooky intuition, Phonsynthesis can remind one of all sorts of acts - from Frank Zappa, Sun Ra or Medeski, Martin & Wood to Jimmy Smith, Soulive or the Average White Band.

Most important, given the diversity of those comparisons, it's pretty obvious that Phonosynthesis have forged their own distinctive sound.

"I think a lot of our dynamic is just listening to each other on-stage and playing off each other and improvising over sections," Botos says. "It might be a really simple chord progression, but any one of us can take it in a completely different direction. That's a big part of what we do."

Dostou adds, laughing, "Adding Seth was huge because playing as a duo was a lot of work. It's fun when you add a third person who can play as many notes as we do! And what's great is the self-sustainable chemistry we seem to have together."

Phonosynthesis continue to refine new material with the plan of recording and releasing a second album. "We have a list of songs we're pretty happy with - and a shorter list of songs we're less happy with," Dostou says. "But we're getting there."

As for tonight's show, the band are excited based on the reaction they got the first time they played the Oasis.

"It was a massive dance party," Young remembers. "Damn, it was crazy! People in New London love music and they unabashedly drink and comingle and dance - and we're happy to be part of that."

r.koster@theday.com

Twitter: @rickkoster