Young French Timothée Quost plays an extended trumpet, intensifying his trumpet with a set of microphones and a mixer that enables him to question the very essence and the limits of his instrument, his own concepts of rhythms and melody as well as his very perception of music. «Before Zero Crossing» his debut solo album, was recorded in Copenhagen over a week in December 2017 and is a personal, sonic logbook, a series of soundscapes from the Danish capital. The album chronicles Quost solitary work mixed with noise-filled places, social meetings and musical duets, on and off stage, with Danish sax master Lotte Anker and viola player Mika Persdotter. During his stay in Copenhagen Quost also collaborated with British master double bass player Barry Guy and American drummer Michael Zerang.

Quost sounds always on the edge of something more, always keeps the listener alert and waiting for more and more adventurous sounds. He keeps experimenting and exploring hidden sonic layers, colors and new vocabularies in his trumpet through his solo work and meetings with new people and friends. Like other innovative improvisers as sax player John Butcher or trumpeters Jean-Luc Cappozzo and Nate Wooley, Quost employs the trumpet at its basic suchness, a metal tube that channels air, breaths and wind, and with the his microphone package he transforms the trumpet into an unworldly wind and noise machine. Surprisingly, some of the untitled pieces uncover some secretive nuances of quiet lyricism as the fifth piece, the second duet with Persdotter or sketch a delicate, cinematic soundscape on the ninth piece. The second duet with Anker suggests a playful and fiery interplay of two highly inventive improvisers.

Eyal Hareuveni

Timothée Quost (tp, mic), Lotte Anker (as), Mika Persdotter (viola, v)