The Portuguese, Coimbra-based power quartet Black Pig Meat formed in 2022 and features prolific guitarist Marcelo dos Reis (of Flora, The Monkious, and Turquoise Dream), synth and keyboard player André Duarte, bassist Pedro Lameira, and drummer Tiago Vaz. These four musicians decided to form a band after years of informal meetings and experimental sessions,
Symbiotic Dream is the quartet’s debut album, recorded live at Academia De Música CNM in Coimbra, where dos Reis teaches. The five pieces were free-improvised, and Black Pig Meat’s aesthetics align with psychedelic jam rock and muscular fusion, showing a clear affinity for the first incarnation of the Mahavishnu Orchestra and some hypnotic Krautrock-like grooves.
Dos Reis unleashes his commanding, acrobatic skills on the electric guitar, setting the atmosphere and course of each piece and leading all into stratospheric, cathartic climaxes. He enjoys the powerful, driving rhythmic section of Lameira and Taz, and the atmospheric layers of Duarte, and all employ the power of improvisation as an expressive, uplifting engine.
Eyal Hareuveni
Marcelo dos Reis (guitar), Tiago Vaz (drums), Pedro Lameira (bass), André Duarte (synthesizers, keyboards)
