A brave band at the epicenter of Montreal music in Canada, Big Brave has ventured into an action plan that without compromising weight, intensity and volume does not fail to reveal a sense of space, tension and vulnerability little felt in such an imposing torrent to the senses. Returning to the ZDB stage after three years, at the time presenting the celebrated ‘A Gaze Among Them’, this trio formed by Mathieu Ball on guitar, Robin Wattie on vocals and guitar and Tasy Hudson on drums and percussions brings its avalanche of repetitive riffs, feedback, atmospheric passages, martial rhythms and Wattie’s expressive voice with ‘nature morte’, released by Thrill Jockey, still causing astonishment. House of respect that also welcomed ‘Leaving None But Small Birds’ in collaboration with the duo The Body and after a fertile passage through Southern Lord materialized in four records.

With some restraint and sense of dynamics transpiring from that encounter for this new album, Big Brave continues to polish a language very much his own, starting from the slowness and suffocation of some more esoteric Doom of this Century to dig out of that primordial mud to new mental and physical states almost impressionistic and of collective catharsis. Rituals that are suspended in a constant balance between darkness and light, tension and liberation, in an almost ascetic minimalism in its quest, fueled by the tangible clamor of Wattie’s voice over the curtains of noise and percussion. Grandiose but also delicate, in a way half-imagined but fully felt. BS

Lvis, a Portuguese artist from Sintra, released “Sudário” in 2021 as his first work within experimental music. With influences from Portuguese tradition and culture, Lvis explores the resonance of the harmonium, piano and harpsichord in this Iberian-rooted neofolk journey, permeating elements of dark ambient and chamber folk, under layers reminiscent of medieval melodies. Fundamentally, Lvis describes “Sudário” as “12 songs of confusion and pain, anguish and forgetfulness, melancholy and boredom”, which, like good old country folk tales, end up mirroring personal experiences and traumas.

He also released the double single “Alegoria de Inverno” – where he explores soft noise with field recordings, through sound collages – and, more recently, a fusion with the power noise of DEATH POSTURE, “How to Be Killed by an Archangel”, in which he returns to gothic orchestration.