Alex Machacek has received praise from the highest echelons. None other than Allan Holdsworth is supposed to have asked the guitarist how he managed to achieve the fantastic sound in his new production. The highly respected magazine Guitar Player has already added Machacek, a long time Los Angeles resident, to the grand stage of international guitar heroes.

Nevertheless, the Fabulous Austrian Trio – as the three band members with their trade mark hats call themselves with reference to an English pop group – is not a guitar-heavy band in the vein of rock music.

FAT is an integrated and intuitive combo of jazz, rock, and a kind of edgy fusion which is hard to describe. However, it is proof that a power-trio and twisted, complex music with lots of architecture can co-exist. This is down to Raphael Preuschl and Herbert Pirker, who are two of the best Austrian musicians of their genres. They have created such multi-faceted as well as stable foundations for Machacek’s sounds that they could well have been inspired by the arrangements of Holdsworth, Terje Rypdal, or Frank Zappa. Sometimes they irritate the listener with an elusive groove; as soon as you think you’ve got it, you’ve lost it again. Form and ensemble spirit utterly dominate the presentation of the trio – despite all their virtuosity.

The band’s name is definitely programme. Seeing them live and in colour is a frantic experience, wild and stirring and with a breathtakingly high standard among dreamy cord sequences and supersonic runs. Innovative and refreshing.