In Farida Amadou’s solo or collaborative music there is a constant tension, fixed not so much in a desire to build, to grow, to explode, but in not releasing, of imploding. She does this from her electric bass, an instrument she learnt to play herself and with which she has mastered a series of languages, including that of improvised music. She burst onto the scene in the middle of the last decade and has travelled all over Europe to play with musicians such as Thurston Moore, Alex Ward, Mette Rasmussen, Eve Risser, among many others, was part of the punk band Cocaine Piss and for the last three years has worked with Steve Noble. Based in Liège, she makes good use of her proximity to the centre of Europe to be on a constant roll of collaborations – ongoing and otherwise – that have opened up her vocabulary in improvised music.

We have heard a lot about João Almeida in the last few years, be it for his solo work or when he multiplies himself in duos, trios, ensembles or bands which have already moved away from jazz, as is the case of Peachfuzz, with Norberto Lobo and João Lopes Pereira, who recently edited Peachinguinha, on Silent Water. It is one of those musicians that have become present on the scene, in the most beneficial form of the idea: their music wants to be part of it and what is around them also wants to embrace it. This serves to say that just as, like Farida, the trumpeter’s affinity for jazz is a gateway to many other places, his willingness to collaborate – and the result of it – have made him a better composer who acts naturally at the confluence of genres.

They’re good for each other, therefore. They are part of the same generation accepting the present codes of improvised music. Affinities that meet in the will and the search for new musical and aesthetic codes, and in wanting to grow even more from there. So it makes perfect sense that they play in the same night. AS