Drummer, percussionist and composer in full swing in recent years, Valentina Magaletti manages an (apparently) inexhaustible source of resources with a determination and vision rarely seen. From the strength of the drums’ skins and metals to the delicacy of ceramics, from the harmony of the marimba to the trash of the everyday life, from the contact microphones to a myriad of woods, there is in Magaletti’s extensive, but really extensive, work a whole arsenal of forms and solutions that can go through near-silence strategies, as well as through the motorik pulse, polyrhythms without time or place or textural tours that either give it a strong imprint or question it immediately afterwards. Spirit of discovery, always on the right side of the barricade.

From this will comes an expansive network of projects and collaborations. More than those we can mention here, but where you can include the hypnotic polyrhythms of the duo CZN alongside João Pais Filipe, the post-punk fragmentation of Moin – alongside Raime -, the psychedelic pop of Vanishing Twin and collaborations with people as estimable and disparate as Jandek, Kamasi Washington, Mica Levi, Thurston Moore or Nicolas Jaar. He was even part of The Can Project presented at the Barbican in 2017, in place – irreplaceable, it must be said – of Jaki Liebezeit. Still, supreme honour.

Last year he left for posterity two solo treatises, and it is in that same state that he returns to the Aquarium. A research work to which a certain romance is not strange, ‘Batterie Fragile’ takes the artist to explore the timbre, the texture and possible sound sources of a ceramic drum kit created by Yves Chaudouët, using brooms, wooden reeds and pieces more or less difficult to identify. Already ‘A Queer Anthology of Drums’, released on LP by the Chinese bié after a digital version at Takuroku of the Café OTO is, as manifested in the title, a reflection on her own existence, in an expressive and very direct and raw collage of ritualistic percussion passages, field recordings, tense piano chords and moments of spiritual harmony conjured by Magaletti with all unassailable honesty and charm. Queen, of course. BS

José Vale is a guitarist based in the city of Porto that wanders between improvised, experimental, noise and rock music, having been leader of the projects: “Fox fist Fight”(2014/2015) and “Tentáculo”(2016/2018), is currently leader of the project “Lucifer Pool Party”, and has his solo project where he explores the most experimental aspects of the electric guitar, as prepared guitar, processing and feedbacks. He also participates in the projects “Unsafe space garden” “Gonzo” and “Davide Lobão”, as well as other sporadic projects of improvised nature. In these projects he can explore various resources outside the academic world, like totally improvised music, sometimes combined with more conventional improvised music, the connections between rock and the way of playing the electric guitar more typical of that style with the way it is used in jazz, fusion of various musical styles like; classic rock, funk, jazz, noise, experimental, free improvisation, reggae, psychedelic rock, progressive rock, and even aspects of classical music. He is co-founder of the DIY labels “CARA PODRE” and “Coração de Boi”. He graduated in jazz guitar at ESMAE in 2021.