Joaquin Muro: Contracara

Recorded in the same sessions and presented (digitally only) as the B-side to his first album—the fully careening Oxymoron (ears&eyes, 2021)—Brazilian trumpeter Joaquin Muro, with his high powered, firebrand peer, tenor saxophonist Camila Nebbia wailing bravely at his side, sets Contracara ablaze.

The music is at its overheating core is a fiery, free jazz rave-up that gleefully and unerringly provides an undisputed respite from the relentless information of our long, recent days. Be the musicians structured as a duo, a quintet, or something more crazed and larger sounding, Muro ranges far and wide and back again unscathed by the volatility around him. Take the antic freneticism of "Nadie nos baila lo quitado" for example and try keeping up with the galloping escapades of Diana Arias (her double bass a wily force of nature if ever there was one) as it loops around and undoes the knots Nebbia and pianist Pia Hernandez scatter recklessly to the torrent. Muro and Nebbia reminiscence somberly on the alluring duet "Villa Pueyrredon" before Arias darkly leads into the even deeper introspection of "Astenia."

From the first whispery intonations of "Brugmansia Arborea," through the expectant mystery of "Sonar" to the closing clash of will and horns on  "Bruxismo," Muro, Nebbia, Arias, Hernandez, and the rhythmic exotics engaged in by drummer/percussionist Martin Freiberg make it well-nigh impossible not to fall into Contracara's roiling narrative.