Pedro Sousa, Johan Berthling & Gabriel Ferrandini - Casa Futuro
The Free Jazz Collective
90
By Stef
This album missed my top-10-of-the-year list for the simple reason that choices should be made, but it was a close call. Pedro Sousa on saxophone, Johan Bertling on bass, and Gabriel Ferrandini bring us three long improvised pieces, and even if it was the first time they played as a trio, the result is absolutely stunning. The music has a slow, but determined intensity, no, a burning intensity, a heat of passion for sound and deep resonance, performed collectively, without leads or themes or melodies, just slow, penetrating sounds of sax bass drums that will keep you glued to your speakers for the entire length of the three long tracks, that despite the openness stays focused, and despite the inherent slowness, never slackens.
On the second and longest track, the volume increases, as Sousa makes his tenor scream and howl in the most heart-rending way, full of agony and despair, and without losing any of the intensity, the sax takes a step back to leave front stage to the arco bass for short bursts of sound, supported by half-muted blasts from the sax, and screeching cymbals, and when the volume gets reduced almost completely, embracing silence, not one bit of the intensity has disappeared, quite to the contrary, it is even more explicit, more powerful, with the bass moving to quiet repetitive plucking, inviting the sax for a wonderful display of multiphonics, offering shades of human voice inflections and more power, and then strangely the piece completely crumbles in little notes. Beautiful!
The last track, amazingly, keeps the intensity alive like the flame in a furnace, slowly at first, with arco bass and monotonous sounds from the sax, with occasional outbursts of volume, alternated by deep rumbling sounds, percussive clutters and accents but then the fire picks up, and how! without changing the speed, the attack becomes stronger, the ferocity too, moving from intimacy to more expansive playing, ending in energetic interplay.
A truly wonderful album.
Fri May 27 00:00:00 GMT 2016