Brazilian electric bass player Felipe Zenicola has a practical advice for the brave ones who are going to listen to his solo album: sit comfortably in a dark room, gaze into the cover of the album while you listen and after listening close your eyes and contemplate about this experience. The contemplating part sounds as the most crucial part. Not only in order to process this tasking experience, but, obviously, to relieve your ears from such an adventurous effort.
Zenicola is known from the Brazilian high-energy trio Chinese Cookie Poets and his collaborations with Norwegian drummer Paal Nilssen-Love («Bota Fogo», PNL/Bocian, 2014) and Danish clarinet player Lars Greve («Live at Audio Rebel», Hiatus/Insula Jazz, 2016). «Phersu» is his second solo album, following «Arcanos» (QTV, 2015) that was inspired by various Tarot archetypes.
On «Phersu» Zenicola suggests another experimental-investigative journey into the low-ends realms of the electric bass, using only his instrument as a sound generator in a 17-minutes intense improvisation. This time Zenicola is inspired by the mythological-etruscan term Phersu, describing ritualistic mask, masquerade ceremonial entity, shapeless entity, journey to Earth’s igneous core or, in much more poetic language, the emptiness horse who rides the emptiness. All these descriptions do some justice to «Phersu» aesthetics. Zenicola sounds as conducting an industrial- drilling ritual into the core of Earth, sketching shapeless yet dense textures that refuse to offer conventional means to decipher them. In this focused and highly disciplined improvisation myth, image and sound are mixed into an otherworldly-nightmarish sonic journey.
Not for the faint of heart.
Eyal Hareuveni
Felipe Zenicola (low tuned electric bass)
