Sounds Like Freedom

Sounds Like Freedom is a gem of an album, one that immediately invites you in for a psychedelic, unexpected ride through its wildly different soundscapes that nonetheless blend into each other with striking synergy. Italian bassist and composer Rosa Brunello again shows her disregard for genres and borders on this completely improvised record, where her bedrock bass grooves act as a guiding light for Yazz Ahmed’s gentle trumpet lines, Egyptian musician and composer Mourice Louca’s electronic textures, and the hypnotic percussions of Italian drummer Marco Frattini. It’s hard to believe the musicians had never played together before this recording session in 2021: melodies take shape then fade away, as instruments make way for Louca’s electronic pyrotechnics at some points, or entwine with them at others. In only thirty minutes the music spreads its tentacles in all sorts of directions, but even when it sounds like it might go completely off the rails, the musicians return to a shared pattern, as if by telepathy.