Argentinian saxophonist Camila Nebbia has steadily become one of the favourites of this blog, with reviews of "Noche U Niebla", "Presencia", "A Reflection Distorts Over Water", "Exhaust", with various ensembles, yet all from the past year, and this even without mentioning concert reviews, videos and end-of-year lists on which she featured.
On "Hypnomaniac", we find her in the company of Portugese inventive double bassist Gonçalo Almeida and French percussion wizard Sylvain Darrifourq, and the result is ... well ... hypnotic. What starts as a free jazz sax trio with all three instruments testing the waters, soon moves into a mesmerising sonic experience, in which all three instruments merge into a drone-like noisy soundscape. The dual rhythm (?) section of Almeida and Darrifourq evolves into an exceptional and bizarre drone-like noise with Nebbia's hoarse sax fluttering above and through the sonic miasma. It lasts "19:45" minutes, as the track's title suggests.
The massive sound subsides and is replaced on the second track by cautious subdued rhythmic sounds over which Nebbia's sax hovers close to a tonal center, subtle and fragile. This approach is kept in the third piece, called "8:59". The three instruments basically merge into one coherent soundscape, with the occasional variation and escaping from the collective sound. It's fascinating.
Only on the final track do the individual instruments regain their distinct voices, though the bass remains electronically warped. The result is jittery, frantic, intense, and gloriously unhinged. It feels as though the sustained tension built across the earlier tracks suddenly erupts without restraint, propelled by Darrifourq’s machine-gun soloing and Nebbia’s wild, untethered improvisation, driving everything toward a deafening, full-throttle finale, welcomed and applauded by an enthusiastic audience.
Nebbia, Almeida and Darrifourq are highly inventive musicians with distinct musical identities and sonic approaches, yet remarkably they succeed in making their visions converge without sacrificing the individuality of their own voices.
The performance was recorded live on March 15th, 2025 at Thessaloniki-Greece during the ''Take 2'' festival organised by Defkaz records and the Mikri Skini venue.
PS - it seems to be a fashion to print titles upside down, as Han-Earl Park did on ‘uᴉɐƃ∀ ʍǝN sI plO sI ʇɐɥM’". For reasons of clarity, I kept the normal way of writing in the title, but for purists: here is the title of this album: "Ɔɐɯᴉlɐ Nǝqqᴉɐ' פouçɐlo ∀lɯǝᴉpɐ' Sʎlʌɐᴉu pɐɹɹᴉɟonɹɔb - Hʎduoɯɐuᴉɐɔ".
Ǝuɾoʎ¡
Listen and download from Bandcamp.
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