At their concert at the Bird's Eye in Basel last night, Mixmonk with Robin Verheyen (tenor and soprano saxophone), Bram De Looze (piano), and Joey Baron (drums) played entirely without amplification. Their mostly sparse arrangements made the details of their playing audible for both each other and the audience. For me, one moment in Thelonious Monk's "Monk's Mood" stood for the band's approach (both as metonym and metaphor): After an introduction with tenor saxophone and piano, Baron played a soft roll of brushes on a cymbal, and De Looze tilted his head and stuck his tongue out the side of his mouth like Charlie Brown. Everything they played sound like discovery. (Andrew Shields, #111Words, 16 May 2026)