Recommended: GABBRO – “GABBRO”

GABBRO isn’t sold as something it’s not.  This duo baritone saxophone collaboration has all the fireworks and explosiveness and volatility one would expect.  There is nothing subtle here.  The GABBRO duo, long-time collaborators Marc De Maeseneer and Hanne De Backer don’t mess around.  There’s an immediacy to this music that is as dramatic as it is fun.  Yes, there’s plenty of variation between tunes.  The pulsing “Minor Swing” contrasts nicely with the slow drone and melodic yawns of “For the Souls Of Nauru.”  Despite a motion all its own, the the pinball action of “Hellh Olé” snaps neatly into place with the kick back and wail of “We’ve Seen Life On Mars!?”  The slow eruption of “821 DARK” walks the earth with an entirely different gait than the strangely tuneful “Kravaal Bos,” and yet they fly in unison like birds-of-a-feather.  The album opens with a track that incorporates all of these qualities, and more, and by setting the tone immediately for everything that is to follow, “Sterna Paradisaea” behaves, in some very essential ways, as the introduction, the conflict and the denouement of this very animated recording.

Your album personnel:  Marc De Maeseneer (baritone sax) and Hanne De Backer (baritone sax).

Released on El Negocito Records.

Listen to more of the album at the label’s Bandcamp page.

Music from Ixelles, Belgium.

Available at:  Bandcamp | Amazon