LAMA + Joachim Badenhorst - Metamorphosis (2017)

No other title could be more certain to describe the music played by this transnational band lead by the Portuguese double bassist and composer Gonçalo Almeida and having Joachim Badenhorst (once again, like on the previous “The Elephant’s Journey”) as special guest. In fact, everything is in permanent inner mutation along the three parts of the suite-like piece “Metamorphosis”, but also the other two, “Comacina Dream” and “Dark Corner”. When you feel that the trio-turned-quartet functions in chamber jazz domain, the music goes to electro-acoustic territories. Now more than ever before (Almeida’s loops and effects are added by some keyboards work, and Greg Smith doubles his drumkit with a laptop), and with a particular kind of approach with a dirty, full of sediments, organic use of electricity and electronics. But all the coordinates are still in balance – and balance is the key word to understand what Lama proposes us since the start. In this case, balance with what Susana Santos Silva and Badenhorst give us, exploring the combined timbres of the trumpet and the clarinet along with the tonal, acoustic, possibilities at their disposition. They became one of the most exhilarating horn frontline of the moment, and that’s an achievement in itself. Equilibrium is also to find someone with the performative capacities of Gonçalo Almeida choosing to make his partners shine.