Filippo Deorsola - Anaphora | Lexicon I (2022)

Italian pianist Filippo Deorsola brings together his Anaphora piano trio this April for Lexicon I, an album set on challenging the very jazz traditions that influence them.

Highly original and frequently unexpected, 11 compositions pull at the threads of avant-garde, straight-ahead jazz, contemporary classical music and even the blues, leaving the listener guessing at every turn.

Intimate moments of solo-piano, textural explorations of upright bass and explosions of rock-fueled drum grooves all contribute to the indefinable chaos of Anaphora’s experimentations.

Born through a chance meeting at a jam session CODARTS conservatoire in Rotterdam, Anaphora is driven by a desire to explore the relationship between a musical form, improvisation, and one’s innate ability to navigate a musical landscape.

In Jonathan Ho Chin Kiat (double bass) and Ap Verhoeven (drums) Deorsola has found two fellow musicians who embrace the genreless forward-thinking nature of contemporary jazz and prove willing conspirators in the search for breaking down expectations - both their own, and those of the listener.
In Deorsola’s own words, by eroding the comforts of familiarity, structure, and time and thrusting themselves into the unexpected, “the automatisms of the body are put into question. Control must be taken back in order to let loose again”.

Turning words into action, Deorsola’s Bachelor Thesis research into Improvisation was presented at the 2020 Arts and Technology Conference in Porto, and he founded the M.A.D. Collective (Mutually Assured Deconstruction), a space where visual artists, authors, performers and academics come together to think of new ways of inquiry into the events and things around us.

All told, Lexicon I is both a fascinating listening experience for fans of contemporary music, as well as a hint at what’s to come in the future from Deorsola and his compatriots.

Filippo Deorsola - piano
Jonathan Ho Chin Kiat - double bass
Ap Verhoeven - drums