Electric Umbrella #15

Improvisation is not just another musical genre. It is a radical approach toward musical structure and human communication.

Though all of the musicians performing here tonight have previously played together with at least a few of the others, the two trios we are presenting on this occasion are guaranteed to be 100% untested, having never existed before in these particular configurations. The musicians all share a curiosity for mind-altering encounters, but also the discipline needed to make some sense of all the moving pieces they will inevitably be confronted with. For the audience, the experience can be surprisingly accessible: all you need to do is leave your expectations at the door.

MOVE

MOVE has an urgency for movement. Where change is not only inevitable, it is burningly wished for. Willed into existence. From a sense of interconnectivity sprouts a direct, decisive and ready-made improvisation. Relentless as the rainforest, fertile as alluvium, blossoming ideas from doubt, MOVE is the concept and music of bassist Felipe Zenícola (Chinese Cookie Poets, New Brazilian Funk), saxophonist Yedo Gibson (Eke, Naked Wolf) and drummer João Valinho (Rodrigo Amado Refraction Quartet, Fashion Eternal).

The three musicians connect through an unwavering awareness of each other’s creation, where activity and adaptability are strived for, where communication and respect are paramount – where everything is possible and the impossible is desired. Their debut album The City was released on April of 2023 by Clean Feed Records and their second album will be released in mid 2024.

BALISES

Xavier Charles: clarinet
Éric Normand: bass guitar

Balises is the meeting, offshore, of two musicians who have taken the stand of improvisation: the French Xavier Charles, clarinetist with a thousand sound researches, sounding partner of the greatest improvisers (like John Butcher, Axel Dörner and The Ex), and Éric Normand, jazz punk bassist from Quebec and noise agitator. The result is music that aims to be free, peaceful, permissive, all mixed up and gratifying. Music that has nothing to prove.