Rob Mazurek - Chants and Corners (2017)

Electro-Acoustic Composer, Cornetist Rob Mazurek continues to focus on the Brazilian side of his musical production, and that’s good news. Even better when we notice that “Chants and Corners” is something else than a new São Paulo Underground enterprise – some of the contributors are the same, but the project has another confection and this signifies that it’s multiplying in different perspectives, like the flowers of a plant. Playing a modular synth, a sampler and a piano besides his cornet, Mazurek has as partners drummer Mauricio Takara and keyboardist Guilherme Granado (both involved in the two albums recorded live in Portugal by Pharoah & The Underground, the association with Pharoah Sanders of both the Chicago Underground and the São Paulo Underground bands), and also two musicians who preferred to live and work in Brazil, the Swiss rabeca and saxophone player Thomas Rohrer and the British-Chilean pianist Philip Somervell. Of course, the music has a modern psychotropic atmosphere all over it, in the confluence of a large plurality of influences, going from avant-jazz, free improvisation and post-rock to alternative hip-hop and new music. Yes, Mazurek’s imaginary Brazil of sounds is also a big country.