«Made of Mist» is the second duo album by Portuguese trumpeter Luís Vicente and Portuguese-Catalan percussionist Vasco Trilla, following «A Brighter History of Darkness» (Clean Feed, 2019), and recorded at Scratch Built Studios in Lisbon in September 2019. But between the recordings of these duo albums, these gifted and resourceful improvisers also collaborated in trios with Brazilian sax player Yedo Gibson («L3», Multikulti Project, 2018) and Polish pianist Witold Oleszak («Live At 1st Spontaneous Music Festival», Multikulti Project, 2019) and Vicente played in one of Trilla’s bands, Hung Mung’s «Chaos and Confucius» (Discordian, 2020), and, obviously, the two performed numerous concerts around Europe together.
«Made of Mist» offers six distinct and bold perspectives of the dynamics of these free-improvising sonic alchemists, all connected as a long suite with an ascensional narrative. Vicente and Trilla begin with the devotional, ceremonial «Abyssal» where the bowed, resonant cymbals and gongs sound as embracing gently the soft, ethereal trumpet sounds and later Vicente’s acrobatic extended breathing techniques. «Swirling Winds» deepens the sound-oriented vein but now Vicente’s playful timbral variations blend into Trilla’s disorienting and noisy ones and create a twisted but surprisingly harmonious and emotional song.
«Esglai» is a physical and super-intense duet that highlights the immediate and profound affinity of the two improvisers. «Ignis Fatuus» distills out of the dense, physical approach, and its metallic noises and abstract, otherworldly blows, a beautiful melody that rides on a powerful groove. «Scorching Light» employs an array of inventive, extended breathing, bowing and percussive techniques to create a noisy and tense but also an amusing and touching conversation of two talkative friends. The album closes with a full return to the spiritual, mysterious atmosphere of its opening with «Brocken Spectre», where the extended breathing techniques of Vicente and his singing voice melt with the ceremonial, misty percussive sounds of Trilla and intensify the meditative effect. Vicente and Trilla added after the sixth piece a 20-second surprise song «A Little Sample», that tells a lot about their unique connection.
The more you listen to Vicente and Trilla, you realize that you want more, much more of this great stuff.
Eyal Hareuveni
Luís Vicente (tp), Vasco Trilla (dr, perc)
