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André Carvalho: The Garden Of Earthly Delights
ByThe album opens with "Prelude," introducing the core sextet which colorfully works its way towards a transcendent crescendo. Guitarist Andre Matos adds a shimmering harmonic frame. The lucid and tremolo-heavy guitar tone accompanies the marching of bass and drums along the lines of which saxophones and trumpet swirl and curl. "The Fools of Venus" follows with a much more ill-tempered attitude, creating the first of many direct contrasts the album is packed full of.
No song here resembles another, making the record highly versatile in style and sound. Yet a sense of concept remains intact throughout, deriving not only from the steady instrumentation and sonic treatment but also the prevailing bass and drum conversations, which are tightly intertwined. "Cherries, Brambies and Strawberries" is one of the tightest and most traditional compositions on the record, and demonstrates this interplay most directly. The guitar transforms the two into a trio, while saxophones play an ornamental role.
"Evil Parade" is another standout and evokes a neo-western soundscape, due among other things to the rhythmical chord strokes that are drenched in reverb. The Latin-tinged melody lines are fittingly exercised by saxophone and trumpet, and give this piece of rock-and-roll music a feverish imperative that ends in cacophonic disaster. Some of the ambient noise-exercises, such as "The Thinker in the Tavern," seem kind of redundant on their own but have their rightful place within the concept and serve as dynamic interludes.
The Garden Of Earthly Delights is an ambitious recording by a visionary musician who has surrounded himself with like-minded peers for an hour of extravagant fun that carries energy outward as much as it reflects inward.
Track Listing
Prelude; The Fools Of Venus; The Fountain; Dracaena Draco; Of Mermaids And Mermen; Cherries, Brambles And Strawberries; The Towers Of Eden; Evil Parade; The Thinker In The Tavern; The Forlorn Mill; Phowa
Personnel
André Carvalho
bassOskar Stenmark: trumpet, flugelhorn; Eitan Gofman: tenor saxophone (2, 4, 5, 10), flute (3, 4), bass clarinet (1, 7, 11); Jeremy Powell: soprano saxophone (1, 2, 4, 5, 10), tenor saxophone (6, 8, 11), flute (5); André Matos: guitar; André Carvalho: couble bass, wrinkled paper (9); Rodrigo Recabarren: drums, percussion, bomba legüero.
Album information
Title: The Garden Of Earthly Delights | Year Released: 2019 | Record Label: Outside In Music