Album Review
Lopes, Luis – “Lisbon Berlin Trio” – [Clean Feed]
Thurston Hunger 12/6/2012 CD, Jazz
Scritchy, discordant but clean guitar improvisations from Luis Lopes
out of Portugal. To me, Lopes rises from the rock-inflamed mountain
of guitarists, Sonny Sharrock, Anders Hana, Ido Bukleman. That
being said, his playing, while crazed and clustered minimally
dips into the fuzzy lands of effect pedals. At least on this (his
first release to find KFJC!) The album opens with this dry vibe,
Robert Landfermann’s upright bass is bowed slow like a crypt
opening. Drummer Christian Lillinger blows tense air over his
cymbals, and Lopes tip-toes in with some feedback and maybe a
little delay ringing. It’s like he’s limbering up over the stretching
of the bass strings. At about 4min, he’s ready to catch fire. The
tone of the album pretty much follows that track, on “Mutant Free 1”
his playing is really bright and at the end seems he is whistling
through his pickups, kinda has a Mats Gustafsson thing going. “Song
for M” is indeed the most song-styled, with a kind of ECM walking
bassline and then spider-webbed chords in it too. It all came together
on “Trip to” which starts with Lillinger doing a call/response
between his hi-hat and snare, some distant and driven-to-distortion
guitar approaches and a whirlwind ensues. Check out Landfermann’s
bass dervish before the softer coda. Nice work all around!
-Thurston Hunger
you heard it 22 times on kfjc! most recently:
- 1051 days ago, Phil Phactor played Hang Out With
- 3405 days ago, Surfer Rosa played Song For M
- 3407 days ago, Roland Blunt played Trip to
- 3412 days ago, Thee Opinataur played Mutant Free 2
- 3412 days ago, Sally Goodin played Song For M
12345 S. El Monte Road Los Altos Hills, California 94022
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