Three young and gifted Argentinian, Berlin-based improvisers – prolific, globetrotting tenor sax player Camila Nebbia, baritone sax player Sofia Salvo, who recently played with Keiji Haino and Paal Nilssen-Love in a tribute to the late Peter Brötzmann, and vocal artist Lara Alarcón, who focuses on the on the performativity of the vocals in prosthetic dialectics + Austrian, Bezauu-based drummer Alfred Vogel, who recently recorded with Nebbia the trio album Eyes to the Sun (with pianist Leo Genovese, Boomslang, 2024).

PNKSTRASSE53 was recorded at Bonello Studios in Berlin, located at Pankstrasse 53, in June 2023 (before the recording of Eyes to the Sun) by recording engineer-producer Martin Ruch (Kuhn Fu, Petter Eldh, Philip Zoubek, Taiko Saito, Achim Kaufmann), after the four musicians teamed up online and met in Berlin.

The music was free improvised with a punk jazz attitude. Alarcón set the short eight pieces in free-associative, emotional stories, Nebbia and Salvo push to stratospheric extremes, and Vogel ties these energetic storms in coherent percussive patterns. Trust, friendship and like-minded, irreverent attitude led this first meeting, and the strong-minded and resourceful delegates from the Buenos Aires, Berlin and Beazu – «BBB», to focus on urgent manifestations of «Blow. Beat. Scream (as two pieces are titled) worked well. This too-short but high-octane performance of the ad-hoc quartet demonstrates the potential of such a creative, risk-taking working band. Pianist Valentin Gerhardus did the remix for the last explosive piece «PANK».

Eyal Hareuveni

Camila Nebbia (tenor saxophone), Sofia Salvo (baritone saxophone), Lara Alarcón (vocals, effects), Alfred Vogel (drums)