The Nathan Bowles Trio’s ‘Are Possible’ is a spark-throwing, undulating fusion of styles played (mainly) on banjo, upright bass and drums. The individual perspectives of Nathan, doublebassist Casey Toll (Jake Xerxes Fussell, Mt. Moriah) and drummer Rex McMurry (CAVE) work together in an easy-rolling manner, but one that contains an expansive, ass-shaking confabulation of ideas. Nathan’s solo music-making explorations with the banjo are evidence of the range of possible places to go in the world while still in contact with one’s roots: clawhammer boogie, strummed, bowed and percussive techniques, original compositions and traditional tunes, all cutting a path between old-time Appalachian music and its long-lost cousin, ecstatic minimal drone. In conversation with Rex and Casey’s own conceptions, with guitar, bass, mellowtone, keyboards, drums and percussion aboard, he continues to ride toward new vistas. It’s been a long six years since these three players first appeared on Nathan’s 2018 album, ‘Plainly Mistaken’, a stretch made weird by the period of time in which social music couldn’t be played socially. But again, nothing ever really dies: the time since, experienced as individuals and as a band, informs everything about ‘Are Possible’’s multitudinous group sound. The details along the road that the band travelled to get here, where one riff blossomed into ten, then melted back down, and parts were added and subtracted and became each other in moments of new collective understanding. Rex brought a rhythm to the table after drumming on buckets at work, Casey provided a bassline that redirected a previous jam, Nathan brought in a song he’d been messing with forever and they figured it out together. Their diversity of sources moves easily within the arrangements, rendering a far-ranging set of feels, from transcendental to new country funk to good ol’ jazz and the folk-rock – all of it drawn out exquisitely when they mixed at Electrical Audio in Chicago with the delicate hands of Cooper Crain upon the faders. The Nathan Bowles Trio have done their due diligence, passing their music through time and space on their way to now; now, the real trip begins, as ‘Are Possible’ travels on, through you.