Dutch keyboardist Michiel Braam changed the name of his electric band from the Wurli Trio to eBraam, and he now apparently favors the more varied Nord Stage EX over the ol' Wurlitzer. The new band name speaks to the wider palette of keyboard voicings now open to Braam, while also seeming well suited to the 2013 music distribution/consumption Zeitgeist in which a lowercase "i" prefix marks hundreds of millions of mobile music-listening devices. And yet on 3, the group's debut as eBraam and third album overall, Braam, bassist Pieter Douma, and drummer Dirk-Peter Kölsch look back over 40 years, claiming to take their inspiration and influences from Soft Machine's landmark 1970 album Third, along with George Duke and Ten Years After -- so it seems that everything from psychedelic to jazz-rock, fusion, funk, and blues-rock would come into play here. Plus, the title 3 refers to the use of triads, thirds, and waltz meters among the compositional elements, unsurprising for a band whose 2006 album, Hosting Changes, was laden with anagrams. Patterns and structures -- whether in music or words -- are particular Braam obsessions, yet even in an "e" band, the result is more playful than mechanical.

1		1b44, Please
2		The Pindaric Ode
3		Augmented Seconds
4		Pythagorean Theorem
5		Triple Jump
6		Triad
7		The Mind
8		3 Sheets to the Wind
9		A Certain Kind

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