Hope everyone out there is having a good holiday if you celebrate, or just a good day if you don’t. On the music front, I received some lovely gifts from family, including a few killer records and the complete recording of Henry Cow I’ll eventually get to. Nothing from 2025, though (are you surprised?) so as I kick back post-Christmas with a cup of coffee, let’s talk jazz fusion. Since seeing the sublime ridiculousness of the cover art, I’ve been hooked on Nankai Trio and their debut Antarctica. The Japanese trio take the technical virtuosity of classic fusion groups like Return to Forever and inject some modern shred into their songs, and the result is one of the most enjoyable, exciting albums I’ve heard this year.

The trio (duh) is comprised of Shoya Kitagawa on guitar, Masatoshi Mizuno on bass, and Senri Kawaguchi on drums – all new names to me, but man alive do they rip on Antarctica. Kawaguchi is particular is a powerhouse on the kit, and I highly recommend making your first experience with the group a visual one via the video above. There’s something about the energy she exhibits on opener “Battle on Southern Sea” that is mesmerizing to behold. She rips through tempos and patterns like they were butter, and when she’s the star of the show, as on the first few moments of “Nankai Do”, I feel like my brain is being battered by a hundred hammers, and it’s delightful.

Kitagawa and Mizuno are no slouches, either. Kitagawa can shred like the best players on Shrapnel back in their heyday, and I love that while he can veer into more modern, math-rock territory, it never sounds like that tinny clean percussive nonsense bands like Polyphia traffic in and seem to be all the rage on social media. He has a great, sinewy lead tone, and a strong sense of how to hang back during the others’ solos while remaining audible, often with chiming extended chords. Mizuno, on the other hand, has a very tight, articulate bass sound – there’s not an ounce of fat or flab to his bottom end (I’m just now realizing how that’s worded and I love it, so it stays). It’s perfect for the insane runs he does up and down the neck during his solo spotlights, but it’s also really effective when he slithers and slides fretless on the excellent “Re-departure”.

Even if you’re not a huge fusion fan, I really recommend checking out Nankai Trio’s debut – there’s so much on display you’re bound to find something worth your listening time.