On 2006’s Mobile, Glenn Kotche’s coming-out as a modern percussionist/composer ready for the avant-festival circuit, the Wilco drummer built around his swirling three-part title suite and a dramatic version of the Balinese “Monkey Chant” ceremony arranged for a solo performer with more-massive-than-Carl-Palmer-but-smaller-than-Mickey-Hart drum set-up. On the new follow-up, Adventureland, Kotche dreams even bigger, threading the seven-part Kronos Quartet collaboration “Anomaly” throughout and creating a narrative architecture that moves through Kotche’s various modes of performance and plays
like a larger piece of music. Some pieces, like the rich gamelan approximation of “The Travelling Turtle,” connect to Kotche’s day job as a drummer. Many others, like the piano-driven “The Haunted Viaduct,” serve to both remind the listener that the piano is traditionally considered part of the rhythm section and that Glenn Kotche is far more than a percussionist.