Kaja Draksler & Susana Santos Silva - This Love (2015)

“This Love” is the first recording of a new duo capable to impress all the audiences Kaja Draksler and Susana Santos Silva played to, and also the definitive statement that this project is something to develop further and further. From Slovenian origin, but living now in Amsterdam, Draksler is another woman pianist to add to that list of notables where we find Eve Risser, Sophie Agnel, Kris Davis and Angelica Sanchez. Combining classical and jazz motives, elements from the traditional music of her country and the study of the inner structures of Cecil Taylor’s improvisations, Draksler is a superb player, either revealing a special interest for subtleties and a strong rhythmic feeling. Active in both the mainstream and the avant-garde scenes happening in Portugal, trumpeter Susana Santos Silva confirms here, in a more intimate context, everything she did as a member of a band that already had Chris Speed and Joachim Badenhorst as special guests, Lama. Namely, her warm, tightly focused, lyrical and yet highly geometrical style. Everything they individually did until now seemed to announce this duet where they use nothing but their original music and original interpretation of it. This a totally creative record of the highest level as the duo can go from composition to improvisation just like that, using the appropriate tools as the music goes in a very natural and organic flow. And here it is, finally documented