«Acoustic Masks», the new solo percussion album of Catalan, Barcelona-based Vasco Trilla was inspired by Elias Canetti’s memoir «The Torch In My Ear», describing young Canetti’s arrival in Vienna in the early 1920s, of his schooling, and of the beginning of his life as a writer. Trilla centered this album as a reflection around the passage, «every completely unknown language is a kind of acoustic mask; as soon as one learns it, it becomes a face, understandable and soon familiar». The corresponding cover art to this passage is by Polish artist Krzysztof Małagowski.

The prolific Trilla claims that solo works may seem – and sound – like masks at first: inscrutable fronts that conceal the «ferment of the as yet unclear and uncompleted metamorphoses» that are expressed beneath. Immersing yourself to the music and its suggestive moods, settling into its elusive rhythms and learning its deeply resonating inflections, is to become familiar with what is unfamiliar, to decipher the language, to see the mask soften into a face.

Trilla plays on «Acoustic Masks» tuned flat bells, drum sets, prepared triangles, metronome, clock chimes and pendulums as well as different assorted percussion. The album is structured like a hypnotic and highly nuanced sonic journey with a clear narrative vision. Trilla sculpts in time and space well-crafted and imaginative textures, with an impressive range of timbre, dynamics and densities. Fellow-percussionist Tim Daisy, who recorded with Trilla the «Bristling Duets» album last year (Relay, 2021) complimented Trilla for «the clear identity contained within each unique auditory landscape». Furthermore, Trilla acts here like a powerful sonic shaman that invokes inspiring and healing visions that sharpen and recover our senses so we may decipher and understand what is hidden behind the masks. «Acoustic Masks» is the perfect ritual for softening the masks.

Eyal Hareuveni

Vasco Trilla (perc)