Caroline Davis/Grey Mcmurray/Qasim Naqvi: Trappings of Sleep

On Trappings of Sleep, the latest release from former ECM producer Sun Chung’s Red Hook imprint, every musical phrase bears record of an intercepted confidence. Caroline Davis’s alto saxophone and electronics extend the body into that disruption, while Grey Mcmurray’s guitar illuminates the intervening dark. Qasim Naqvi approaches the drums with an alertness that makes even the smallest quiver consequential. Together, they suggest an observatory of reflection. Recorded in Brooklyn in May 2025, the album gathers compositions by each participant, giving their instinctive rapport a written framework that remains open to the discoveries of performance. Across this Red Hook Records release, the ear adjusts to unfamiliar magnitudes, discovering that a barely sustained tone can occupy an enormous expanse. The invitation is to listen beyond the point at which recognition usually permits us to stop. The fascination of “Three” begins in its agitated details, which draw us toward something whose…