Gabriel Ferrandini is more than just a fulfilled promise of a drummer in contemporary Portuguese music. The artist and musician has gone far beyond this territory to assert himself as vulnerable and viscerally curious to the world around him, always with music setting the pace for a vision of total art, where the poetic dimension is insinuated.

The future lives here. In a course where electronics assume multiple and variable solutions, Bruno Silva’s constant offering remains bold and as essential as ever. He seems to know, as few in this championship do, points of connection between space-time geographies, real or imaginary, trying to create a global and simultaneously insular sound lexicon. Between memories and visions, the new album “Meio Que Sumiu” is a tempting sound object. An album that breaks new ground firmly and obviously arrives in time to enter the equation of the strongest editions of this year – and with serious repercussions for the times to come.
It’s almost impossible to separate what he presents from what he’s created so far. 2018 was a very strong year for Silva, with a pair of brilliant releases under the Serpente label. “Rituais 101” and “A Noiva” somehow reconstructed, or transported to other latitudes, a series of references to techno and dancehall. Reporting a genuine urgency, the structures he was able to extract from them sound absolutely organic and unpredictable, in control of themselves. This new venture by Ondness is a culmination of these already vigorous tracks, for something greater. In what is a vinyl debut, at SOUK (part of the Discrepant family) and with mastering by the wizard Rashad Becker, “Meio Que Sumiu” is a source of energy in a cascade. It represents a firm step in the musician’s career and maintains a constant charm throughout the ten tracks that fit into this urban tumult of rave hangover or ritualistic attraction. Either path is possible – and why not both?

Bruno Silva has had his hands full over the last year: as Ondness, he contributed to the Folclore Impressionista project, released two projects as Serpente and brought these two together in Celas Death Squad, a split released on cassette by the British label Discrepant. More recently, he left his mark on Fora de Turf, an EP released by Extended Records and signed by Sabre, a duo he forms with Carlos Nascimento.