The name might not be immediately familiar but its virtuoso players will be. Trifecta finds Nick Beggs teaming up with Adam Holzman and Craig Blundell for Fragments ’ ‘fission’ noodle stew. Prog catches up with the trio to discuss zombie houses, guerrilla recording sessions and that time the former Kajagoogoo bassist nearly joined Slade.

Words: Dave Everley Images: Hajo Mueller

Trifecta, L-R: Craig Blundell, Adam Holzman and Nick Beggs.

Somewhere in the North Bronx, right next door to Adam Holzman’s house, stands an empty property falling into ruin. This kind of thing isn’t uncommon: New York real estate agents call them ‘zombie houses’. But this particular one has sent the imagination of the keyboard player’s friend and bandmate Nick Beggs into overdrive.

“The guy who lived there just disappeared,” says Holzman. “The place has been standing there vacant ever since. Nick’s fascinated with it. He’s always asking me, ‘What’s going on with that weird house next door?’”

Such is the British bassist and Chapman Stick wizard’s interest in this crumbling abode that he’s named a song after it. Have You Seen What The Neighbours Are Doing? appears on Fragments, the debut album from Trifecta, the fusion-adjacent trio formed by Beggs and Holzman along with drummer and fellow Steven Wilson associate Craig Blundell. Like the majority of the songs on the album, Have You Seen What The Neighbours Are Doing? is instrumental, but that vivid title screams: “Go ahead and make up your own story!”

“The name is a response to the Ween song So Many People In The Neighbourhood, which I love, but the whole thing with Adam’s house was going round my head,” says Beggs. “The guy who lived there sounds like he’s gone off the radar. Talk about vanishing in plain sight. If you want to disappear, live in a city.”