Over the course of the five years since its inception, Punkt. Vrt. Plastik, the trio of Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and German drummer Christian Lillinger, has become one of the premier bands on the European circuit. Definitive proof arrives courtesy of Zurich Concert, the unit's third album, recorded at the 2021 unerhört!-Festival in the titular Swiss city. Although all but one of the selections appear on the outfit's first two releases, they present differently here, their reimaginings injected with new life, recontextualized in mini-suites imbued with volatility, surprise and skew-whiff brilliance.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/john-sharpes-best-jazz-albums-of-2022

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Over the last half-decade no piano trio has provided me with greater thrills than Punkt-Vrt.Plastik, a gritty, wildly angular unit featuring Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, bassist Petter Eldh, and drummer Christian Lillinger. This maniacal live date captures the group at its best, splicing-and-dicing its jagged themes with breathless precision and sideways imagination. Eldh and Lillinger form one of the best rhythm teams in jazz right now, playing with complex grooves like jacked-up scientists perpetually experimenting with new shapes. Draksler gamely joins in, unspooling broken glass patterns smeared by a microtonal effect, but she also imparts melodies of elusive beauty at the same time.

https://thequietus.com/tq-charts/columns-of-the-year/best-jazz-music-of-2022-2/

Music is sound, but is sound music? For John Cage, sound was indeed music. His avant-garde experiments with silence, environmental sounds, and prepared instruments opened up an entire world for discovery and others' improvisations. Even though he disliked the concept of improvisation, preferring chance to a musician's choices, our modern and post-modern free improvisation world has much for which to thank him. Enter the improvising duo of Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, living in Copenhagen, and Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva a resident of Stockholm. Together they are members of the quartet Hearth with Ada Rave and Mette Rasmussen, besides numerous other ensembles they either lead or participate in. Their interests are quite diverse, performing free and composed music solo, in small ensembles and orchestral settings.

Their previous duo This Love (Clean Feed, 2015) is quite different from this outing. That album was guided by the musicians' compositions, and maintained the feel (somewhat) of chamber music. However, it did hint at the music which the pair recorded at the Copenhagen Jazz Festival in 2021. Here they rely upon instant compositions, extended techniques, and prepared instruments. The musicians push the concepts of sound and music, fashioning notes from the literal inside and outside of their piano and trumpet. Machines are imagined with "Close"; a static sound, much like electric circuits, is generated with vibrating and quiet breathy trumpet, while Draksler works at different vibrations with her piano's strings. This is free improvisation with a small "i." The musicians eschew grand statements for the pleasures of improvisation. The satisfaction is in the discovery of new sound textures through the smeared trumpet breath and the percussive possibilities of the piano. "Liquid Rock" begins with what sounds like a blast from an elephant's trunk and develops into dreamlike piano passages. The four pieces presented are a gift of sounds which dare to become music.

https://www.allaboutjazz.com/grow-kaja-draksler-susana-santos-silva-intakt-records

Après deux disques remarqués, le trio Punky.Vrt.Plastik (Kaja Draksler au piano, Peter Eldh à la contrebasse et Christian Lillinger, batterie et percussions) en propose un troisième enregistré en concert. Il présente une série de thèmes anciens ou nouveaux groupés par séquences, lesquels fonctionnent un peu comme des repères autour desquels les trois musiciens improvisent librement, brisant rythmes, mélodies et métrique. Le jeu surprenant et volontiers répétitif de la pianiste montre sa connaissance aiguë des musiques contemporaines et sa manière décalée de l’intégrer dans un contexte jazz. Une musique originale et constamment inventive. Les notes du livret sont signées Alexander Hawkins, qui sait de quoi il parle. Les auditeurs curieux ne doivent pas laisser passer ce disque.

https://culturejazz.fr/spip.php?article3852

Badische Zeitung

You'll find most piano-bass-drums instrumental line-ups filed under 'piano trio jazz' but there's a collective ethos at work in the Slovenian-Swedish-German ensemble Punkt. Vrt.Plastik that defies conventional roleplay. The tightly-knit interdependency of the trio means you can't imagine one part working without the other. The currently Denmark-based Slovenian pianist Kaja Draksler, who received both her informal (improve/jazz) and formal (classical music) education in Amsterdam, formed the band in 2016 with both Berlin-based Swedish bassist Petter Eldh and German drummer Christian Lillinger who were already close collaborators in bands such as Amok Amor with trumpeter Peter Evans.

It's an exhilarating ride right from the get-go, as all three tightly interlock in a music of percussive freneticism, sharp corners and sudden gear changes that holds ideas and narrative together so well. Draksler's looping, spidery chromatic motifs and hypnotic child-like melodies meld seamlessly with a bass and drums sonicworld derived from influences that includes inventive electronica and everything from post-hip hop underground beats and video game soundtracks through to free jazz. Their first two recordings were in the studio but this third and first 'live' recording at the unerhört!-Festival at Rote Fabrik in Zurich proves to be a perfect platform for their raw, knife-edge intensity in which the electricity between the musicians is palpable. Frenetic tempos can mean its hold-on-to-your-hats time for the most part but a moodier, more harmonically expressive side to the trio comes to the fore on 'Axon' and the ambiguously exquisite 'Morgon Morfin', a little reminiscent of Belgian trio Der Bieren Gieren and inevitably perhaps The Bad Plus in their more abstract moments.

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Das europäische Trio Punkt. Vrt. Plastik, bestehend aus der Slowenin Kaja Draksler (p), dem Dänen Petter Eldh (b) und dem Deutschen Christian Lillinger (dr), hat gerade mal zwei Studioaufnahmen veröffentlicht, und schon erscheint hiermit sein erstes Livealbum, auf dem das Material der beiden Vorgänger recycelt wird. Manch eine/r würde behaupten, dass es zu früh sei, an diesem Punkt in dieser Form eine Karriereretrospektive zu veröffentlichen. Manch eine/r würde damit falsch liegen. Es wäre auch ein Fehler zu glauben, dass das vertrackte Dreigespann sich bei dieser Gelegenheit damit zufrieden geben würde, Vergangenes auf dieselbe Art und Weise noch einmal zu bewältigen. Dieser Annahme wird bereits binnen der ersten Takte des Openers widersprochen. Vorher diente das Studio als vierter Interaktionspfeiler - in der Livesituation müssen andere Lösungen und Ansätze verfolgt werden. Dabei gerät die ausufernde Kommunikation des Trios oft in rhythmische Strudel, die Dissonanz bleibt Drakslers bester Freund, und die ver-queren trialogischen Austausche wechseln zwischen beatkonzentrischen und rubato-esquen Elaborationen hin und her. Im der CD beigelegten Text stützt Pianist Alexander Hawkins sein Urteil zu diesem Album auf das bekannte Zitat: „Erzähl ihnen, was du sagen wirst; sag es; dann erzähl ihnen, was du gerade gesagt hast". Das mag schwarz auf weiß recht banal klingen, wer aber diese Musik hört, wird eines Besseren belehrt.