Susana Santos Silva & Vasco Trilla - Mushin (Defkaz, 2026) Sculpting Silence 1

By Stef Gijssels

A short intro on "Sculpting Silence"

The nature of art is to make you stop you in your tracks, to stop doing what you're doing and thinking, and to start using your senses, your eyes and ears, sometimes your touch and smell to be surprised, to be confronted with the unexpected, to admire, to see things differently. 

We will have a short series of music that we describe as "sculpting silence", music in which sound is used like the black lines of a pen in zen art, a few strokes that capture the essence on a white canvas. And the first album in the series explicitly refers to the Zen concepts of 'Mu' and 'Shin' : "The term combines the kanji Mu (nothingness) and Shin (mind or spirit), and is often translated as “no-mind.” It refers to a state of consciousness free from fear, anger, or ego—where action arises naturally and without obstruction. In musical terms, this becomes a space where sound is not forced or premeditated, but emerges with clarity and immediacy", we read in the liner notes.

So the few strokes on a white canvas - on 'nothingness' - are like the ripples on a still pond, the barely visible effect of the slightest breeze. Here are some descriptions I found on the value of the colour 'white' in Zen art, comparable to silence in music. 

In Zen art, white is not merely a blank background or an empty void. It represents 'ma' (negative space), functioning as living breath, silence, and the infinite potential from which all forms emerge and return. 

The unpainted white paper or silk is an active, essential presence equal to the black ink strokes. 

Zen painting uses intentional emptiness, asymmetry, and abbreviated forms to point toward direct seeing rather than decoration.

Blank space is not “nothing”; it functions as breath, silence, and the field in which forms appear and dissolve.

Common motifs—enso, bamboo, landscapes, and solitary figures—teach non-attachment and ordinary clarity.

I also found some sayings about listening. 

"Listening stops with the ears, the mind stops with recognition, but spirit is empty and waits on all things."

"What is this mind? Who is hearing these sounds? ... What is it that hears?"

"The quieter you become, the more you can hear."

Now about the album.

The cover art is bizarre, to say the least: a cigarette-smoking armour seated on a toilet in a hilly landscape. It's in bad taste in my opinion, and not because of the toilet, but also because it does not truly reflect the nature of the music. It's a surreal digital artwork created by Aki Karano (also known as Akis Karanos) a visual artist and experimental musician, based in Greece.

In retrospect, it looks familiar when you see the likeness with the traditional Japanese drawings of monks contemplating the world, and also seen from the back. There may be a reference, or it might just be a coincidence. Admitted, the monk is not smoking and not wearing an armour, and he's contemplating a circle and not a square, yet it might be a more modern, more surreal rendition of the same experience.

Now really about the album. 

Both Susana Santos Silva on trumpet and Vasco Trilla on percussion explore the boundaries and sonic potential of their respective instruments, creating ringing tones, whistles, droplets, swooshes, rumbles, gurgles, swishes and many more sounds without name or description. 

The album begins quietly, with uncommon sounds cautiously flirting with silence—touching it slowly and gently, as if aware of its fragility. The result is a kind of soft intensity, with no obvious path or predetermined concept beyond the simple act of producing small fragments of sound and welcoming their clarity, their unexpectedness, and the ways in which they interact.

This is music that has nothing to prove. It does not seek to impress, move, or even necessarily engage a listener or an audience. It exists simply for its own sake: to be savoured, appreciated, and perhaps approached with the same state of mind as the artists themselves—with no attachment and no anticipation. Such an experience can only emerge from going beyond the expected, allowing the music to develop organically and naturally, as if arising from nothingness.

Contrary to the liner notes, I would recommend simply listening, rather than reflecting while you listen. Let yourself become part of the experience. Be there in the moment.

Both Santos Silva and Trilla are masters of their art. They share a remarkable sensitivity and an innovative ability to draw sounds from their instruments that are rarely heard, while employing a wide range of techniques and tools to sustain the listener’s attention. As with much improvised music, the album may surprise you on a first listen, but it reveals more of itself with each return.

Be the music.

 

Listen and download from Bandcamp.