Our Time is the sophomore album of Portuguese, Coimbra-based prolific guitarist, composer, educator and label owner Marcelo dos Reis and his Flora working trio, featuring the fellow Coimbra-based double bass player Miguel Falcão and drummer Luís Filipe Silva, both have known and worked with dos Reis and with each other in different contexts and formats over the years, and dos Reis on acoustic and electric guitars. The album was recorded in March 2025 at Academia de Música in Coimbra, where dos Reis is a guitar teacher and is the director.
Dos Reis composed the five new pieces, and all reflect his perspective about our world, his current life as a young father, the changes, and what its passage makes us feel, as well as the trio’s mature, confident phase, a natural outcome of the trio’s fifty performances since the release of the debut album. Dos Reis’ open compositions leave enough room for adventurous improvisation, and incorporate Falcão’s experience in rock groups and Silva’s interest in funk, jazz, free improvisation, and experimental sound art.
And, indeed, the opening piece, «Irreversible Light», features Flora in its most powerful, rock-tinged, ecstatic rhythmic drive. The following piece, «Thirteen Minutes», suggests an intense drama, articulated by dos Reis’ commanding and urgent electric guitar lines, and ornamented by the tension-charged contributions of Falcão’s bowed work and Silva’s hyper-energetic drumming. Falcão and Silva’s nuanced rhythmic interplay feeds the restless, urgent dynamics of «Bending Cycles». Dos Reis introduces the touching melody of «After the Between (Tanger)», before Falcão and Silva join in and open this piece for further melodic and dramatic explorations. The last piece, «Now That We Know», captures this power trio in complex, prog-rock, playful-acrobatic drama that stresses, again, the layered, detailed choreography of dos Reis, Falcão, and Silva, all the way towards the cathartic coda.
Siderails, dos Reis’ first acoustic duo album with fellow Portuguese, Rotterdam-based double bass player Gonçalo Almeida, celebrates the tenth anniversary of dos Reis’ label, Cipsela. Dos Reis and Almeida collaborated before in The Monkious trio (No Straight With Chaser, JACC, 2025), dedicated to irreverent interpretations of Thelonious Monk’s iconic pieces, but Siderails focuses on free improvised duets, enhanced by extended bowing, plucking, and percussive techniques, with assorted objects. Dos Reis focuses here on the nylon string guitar, and the album was recorded at Semente Atelier in Coimbra in March 2025. The four untitled pieces encourage sonic exploration, and it is often difficult to determine who produces which sounds. Dos Reis and Almeida immediately established a deep, adventurous, and uncompromising camaraderie, devoted to a patient, methodical expansion of their sonic palettes. Each of the four pieces suggests a distinct experimental edge, and only the last piece attempts to offer a fragmented, melodic theme.
Eyal Hareuveni
Luís Filipe Silva (drums), Miguel Falcão (double bass), Gonçalo Almeida (double bass), Marcelo dos Reis (electric guitar, nylon string guitar)
