Interfase documents an Argentinian, Buenos Aires-based, free jazz meets free improvisation quartet of pianist-percussionist Nataniel Edelman, guitarist Luciano Bagnasco, double bass player Santiago Lamisovski (who recorded before with Edelman in a quartet with American sax player Michaël Attias) and drummer Fermín Merlo (who recorded with Argentinian pianist Marco Sanguinetti). The album was recorded at La cuerda mecánica in Buenos Aires in September 2022.

Bagnasco and Merlo have played separately a few times in the Nocturna Discordia concert series in Barcelona with local musicians. Bagnasco took part in a few recordings of the Barcelona-based Discordian Records, which released the debut album of the Argentinian quartet. He released several solo albums on his own and duos with electronics player Gonzalo Navarro and is a member of the Almost Invariably trio with Portuguese sax player José Lencastre and drummer João Valinho.

The eight pieces are credited to the four musicians and offer an unsettling and thorny version of free music. The effects-laden, noisy and distorted-sounding electric guitar of Bagnasco pushes the interplay into more abstract, often suggestive and cinematic terrains, and keeps a healthy, dramatic tension throughout all the pieces, but without distancing himself outside the realm of contemporary jazz. Edelman alternates between free jazz playing on the piano to percussive instruments and melodica while Lamisovski and Merlo charge the restless and powerful dynamics with free pulses. It would be interesting how this quartet will develop its dynamics.

Eyal Hareuveni  

Nataniel Edelman (piano, melodica, quena, kalimba), Luciano Bagnasco (electric guitar), Santiago Lamisovski (double bass), Fermín Merlo (drums)