The free improvising quartet Talagbusao features four young musicians – Copenhagen-based, Swiss-Filipino pianist Margaux Oswald and Portuguese alto sax player João Gato, with fellow Portuguese, Lisbon-based guitarist João Carreiro (who recorded with Oswald the trio album Understanding life (Phonogram Unit, 2024, with Portuguese sax player José Lencastre), and drummer João Valinho (who plays with Carreiro in the trio sonic Tender with pianist Guilherme Aguiar, Odd Objects, Rovalo, 2024). The quartet’s debut album was recorded at Timbuktu Studios in Lisbon in July 2023.

The quartet describes its music as reflecting «an equilibrium between an animalistic energy presented through volatile rhythmic mantras and the pointillistic attention to detail of partial manipulation through extended techniques».

The album opens with healthy doses of fiery, fast and combative energy that fit the quartet’s title, the Filipino powerful war god, on «The stuterer trip and fell». But on the following «Hangman» and the enigmatic «Break», the four musicians explore sparse but dramatic interplay with great focus on the unique timbral nuances and possible combinations of the extended techniques, while solidifying the immediate affinity through deep listening. The quartet returns to its high-octane, intense, dense and cathartic mode on the centerpiece, the 12-minute «Left Right», which mid-piece shifts into a more introspective and lyrical mode. This impressive album closes with «Enemy», a dramatic yet serene piece that investigates patiently and methodically its austere but suggestive sonic outlines, again, with great focus on detail.

Eyal Hareuveni

João Carreiro (guitar), João Gato (alto saxophone), Margaux Oswald (piano), João Valinho (drums)