Polish cellist, improviser and composer Julia Biłat presents ten solo improvisations for acoustic cello on *Selva Oscura*, recorded live over three nights in Gross Behnitz, Germany, in March 2025. Working without effects, Biłat draws directly on the physical possibilities of the instrument, moving through splintered harmonics, abrasive bow pressure, resonant drones, percussive attacks and fragile sustained tones, with solo voice appearing on one track. The result is an intensely tactile performance in which small changes of pressure, register and resonance continually reshape the musical space.

The pieces are named after beetle species, reflecting Biłat's interest in hidden environments, transformation and metamorphosis. She describes the recording as the culmination of years of intuitive exploration at the periphery of sound, strongly informed by her physical practice, particularly Butoh dance. That bodily awareness is central to the album: gestures often feel sculpted as much through movement and resistance as through pitch, allowing the cello to shift between recognizable instrumental sonority and rough, unstable textures.

The title Selva Oscura — "dark forest" — suits music that repeatedly enters shadowed, uncertain terrain without settling into a fixed vocabulary. Across concise studies and longer-form improvisations, Biłat balances density with silence, force with delicacy, and sustained resonance with sudden rupture, presenting a solo language in which physical gesture, extended technique and spontaneous form remain inseparable.