A young Amsterdam-based pianist with a fertile career on the bustling Dutch scene, Marta Warelis has several points of contact with Melo Alves. In direct contact with artists of free improvisation and jazz sown here, such as the line-up that recorded the disc ‘Turquoise Dream’ in Coimbra for JACC Records – namely: Helena Espvall, Marcelo dos Reis and Carlos “Zíngaro” – and, secondly, through musicians with great complicity with this country such as Onno Govaerts and John Dikeman, Warelis further consolidates this beautiful Portugal-Netherlands axis that has been going on for a long time. Taking the instrument as a whole, from keys to strings, Warelis takes an approach that is as delicate and exploratory as it is rhythmic and decisive, instigating unusual sounds and more percussive movements in the same continuum, with a sense of narrative. Lyrical passages in harmonic collusion with hypnotic and rough textures, melancholy, atmosphere and a whole repertoire of aspirations and solutions with cause and effect. ‘A Grain of Earth’, the solo album released last year by Relative Pitch, already leaves some certainties and even greater expectations for this meeting. BS