Lisbon-based American bassist and composer Michael Formanek introduces a new septet, New Digs, featuring his trio partners from Thumbscrew — guitarist Mary Halvorson and drummer Tomas Fujiwara — alongside British organist Alexander Hawkins and a three-horn frontline of saxophonists John O’Gallagher and Chet Doxas, plus trumpeter João Almeida.
Driven by imaginative, free-flowing arrangements, the band opens with “New Old World”, a platform for resolute bass lines, psychedelic organ textures, slippery rhythmic shifts, and bursts of cacophony marked by stabbing saxophone and trumpet figures over counterintuitive guitar accompaniment. Solos by Halvorson, O’Gallagher, and Doxas stand out, with the latter channeling…