A first-time meeting between American cellist Dan Levin and two veteran Portuguese improvisers, Panorama results in salient and distinct sounds. A chance Lisbon art gallery encounter engendered this collaborator between Levin, who works with New York innovators like Andrew Drury and pocket trumpeter Sei Miguel plus Miguel's long-time associate alto trombonist Fala Mariam. Resulting are nine musical alliances that evolve without a hint of European-American fissure.
Without compromise the cellist's squeaky stabs, spiccato slices or thick string pressure extend the brass players' output, which mostly centres around singular blasts. Brief triplet bites or half valve growls from the trumpeter, seconded with plunger tones or suspended toneless breaths from the trombonist make up their contributions.
A track such as "The First Lady" for instance thickens and concentrates after Levin's multi-string vibrations connect with call-and-response shakes at varied pitches from the brass players. In contrast "Ich-Du" a duet between Miguel and Levin, moves the broken-octave exposition from brass grace notes and warm cello stops to tapered brass slurs and col legno string jumps before climaxing as horizontal quietude.
Slow-moving and harmonized three-pronged interaction is sometimes featured. Mostly though the majority of tracks play up the resolved sonic conflicts from the cellist's metallic echoes and intense buzzing slaps and the brass players' bugling projections and/or rip, smears and metallic shakes.
This Panorama is a one/off scenic encounter that bears repeating.
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