Cathalan, Barcelona-based alto sax player master Liba Villavecchia and prolific drummer-percussionist Vasco Trilla play together in the free jazz Villavecchia Trio (with double bass player Àlex Reviriego) and in other bands (the local Hung Mung and the Polish trumpeter Piotr Damasiewicz). Villavecchia and Trilla toured as a free improvising duo, but Serrat (a ridge of hills, or a mountain range) is their debut duo album, recorded at the Underpool Studio in Barcelona.

The album features two extended and aptly titled pieces – «Fisura» (fissure or crack) and «Rauxa» (a sudden burst of impulse, passion, rashness, or creative madness). These are deep and immediate conversations between two kindred souls, uncompromising sonic explorers who are well-versed in the art of the moment and the language of instinct, memory and pure expression.

Trillat takes Villavecchia into his most free journey so far. You can hear echoes of Ornette Coleman’s harmolodics, or the instant melodic phrasing of Thomas Chapin, but much more of the telepathic, free interplay of Villavecchia and Trilla, who know each other inside out and act as a powerful and fearless, two-headed sonic entity. They constantly shift between unpredictable landscapes of tension, silence, energy, and release, while expanding the sonic palette of the alto sax and the drum set with inventive extended breathing, bowing, and percussive techniques, and experimenting with enigmatic timbres. They sound like poetic sonic painters or shamans who colour the expanded textures with raw emotion, moving imagination, and lyrical intensity, as if they are conducting magical, deeply immersive, and life-affirming rituals.

Serrat is available in a limited edition of 250 colour vinyl, and as a download option.

Eyal Hareuveni

Liba Villavecchia (alto saxophone), Vasco Trilla (drums)