Jazz, Electronics, and the Art of Spontaneous Sound
Swiss keyboardist and electronic musician Oli Kuster, UK saxophonist Dee Byrne and Swiss drummer Xavier Kaeser come together in DOX, a trio exploring the shifting boundaries between jazz, electronic music and free improvisation.
Kuster and Byrne have long explored the fringes of jazz through their Swiss/UK collaboration MoonMot, as well as other projects including Motherboard Pinball. In DOX, they push further into uncharted territory, combining keyboards, modular synth, saxophone and acoustic drums in music shaped equally by composition, improvisation and electronic experimentation.
Following their album Drowned Circuits (Efpi Records, November 2025), DOX continues to explore the friction between groove, texture and abstraction. Kuster’s layered keyboard work and modular electronics generate shifting environments and unstable rhythmic frameworks, while Byrne’s saxophone and Kaeser’s kinetic drumming move freely through and against them. The result is a sound world of fractured ambient landscapes, glitch-laden beats, free improvisation and restless rhythmic energy.
The trio’s latest work, Wayfinding, develops these ideas through a suite of interconnected pieces that move between propulsion, turbulence, revelation and renewal. Balancing intricate electronic detail with collective improvisation, DOX inhabits a space that is simultaneously physical and atmospheric, drawing on contemporary jazz, experimental electronics and improvised music without settling comfortably into any one of them.
‘The trio of saxophonist Dee Byrne, synthesizer player Oli Kuster, and drummer Xavier Kaeser apply an avant-garde ethos to a modern post-post-bop sound.’ Dave Sumner, Best Jazz on Bandcamp Nov 2025 [full review]
‘Seven pieces of improvised music that are both adventurous and accessible, the balance between improvisation and structure continues to fascinate.’ The Jazz Mann ★★★★ [full review]
‘… intense, risk-taking, unpredictable, and restless, attempting to bring modern jazz back to the dance floors. It demands a full surrender, and clearly blurs the distinction between jazz, free improvisation, and electronic music.’ Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts [full review]
‘I love the way they patiently let every texture breathe’ Soweto Kinch, Round Midnight, BBC Radio 3
