Philm forges music that bursts forth with unexpected intensity and consequence. Through the band’s insistently sharp, cutting agitation, the music comes more into focus, reaching into the essence, the core, through a process that, with passionate urgency, opens up that core for all to hear. With Philm’s understanding that something only becomes exciting when it is no longer arbitrary, it shifts the boundaries of how we listen. The Berlin-based tenor saxophonist Philipp Gropper is underway with the NYC-based Austrian Elias Stemeseder on piano and synthesizer and the German working class heroes Leif Berger on drums and Robert Landfermann on double-bass. Philm use Gropper’s themes as a way of goading the jazz language to its limits, whilst still retaining the structure and style of the classic quartet line-up.