Portuguese, Coimbra-based guitarist-composer Marcelo dos Reishas a new, working power trio, featuring two new associates – double bass player Miguel Falcão and drummer Luís Filipe Silva, with whom he has never worked before, and a new, debut album of the trio, Flora. The album was recorded live at Blue House Studio in Coimbra in May 2023.

Flora offers six new, original compositions of dos Reis (but in its live performance it played Don Cherry’s «Brown Rice»). The new, genre-bending compositions exhaust the powerful and muscular interplay of this trio, pushing it into psychedelic rock, Krautrock and even Prog-rock-tinged territories, with dos Reis leading the trio with authoritative electric guitar playing and evocative riffs, but leaving enough space for spontaneous, virtuous improvisations. This trio’s dynamics rely on the close rapport of its musicians and its immediate interplay.

Dos Reis knows how to write dramatic, detailed and tension-filled story-like pieces that unfold patiently into unpredictable narratives like «Amanita» and «Cornelia», the latter with its exotic Eastern overtones, or with a rough funky pulse on «Sky Blue Petunia» and the sensual, breezy aura of the last piece, «Full Sun». The rhythm section of Falcão and Silva intensifies these dramatic pieces with its irresistible, driving rhythmic patterns that allow dos Reis to soar higher and higher.

A promising statement.

Eyal Hareuveni

Marcelo dos Reis (guitar), Miguel Falcão (double bass), Luís Filipe Silva (drums)