Celliacus is a Barcelona-based, genre-defying experimental quartet. Its self-titled debut album blurs the distinction between free jazz, punk, death and black metal, and ambient soundscapes. The album was recorded at Vertigo Studios in Barcelona in April 2024. The quartet features leading guitarists – Mexican-born Diego Caicedo (of the Hung Mung quartet) and Venezuelan-born guitarist Juanma Trujillo (who mixed the album); Peruvian-born double bass player (and sound artist) Juan Pablo Egúsquiza, and the only Catalan, drummer Jordi Pallarés (who plays in the jazz ensemble of Argentine double bass player Sebastián de Urquiza).

Celliacus’ dynamics harness the collective, powerful, and bold free improvised spirit of Caicedo and Trujillo’s effects-laden and thorny guitars, Egúsquiza’s pedals-enhanced double bass, and Pallarés’ electronics-augmented drum set to sketch dense, layered, distorted, dissonant, and noisy textures. The instruments’ preparations, extended techniques, and electronic manipulations are essential to Celliacus’ aesthetics, and the quartet sounds as if it has already solidified its energetic, super-intense interplay.

Most of the pieces suggest Celliacus in its raw, brutal, and uncompromising side. But when this quartet restrains its boundless energy and experiments with thoughtful, disorienting sounds and disturbing cinematic images—as in the 14-minute «La doctrina de la conservación» or the last piece, the eleven minutes of rhythmic mayhem of «Discoscaphites Iris»—it offers arresting but disquieting, boundary-dissolving textures.

Eyal Hareuveni

Diego Caicedo (electric guitar, effects), Juanma Trujillo (electric guitar, effects), Juan Pablo Egúsquiza (double bass, effects), Jordi Pallarés (drums, electronics)