Serpente

Serpente’s Afro-Latin rhythm-driven saga ropes in a strong cast of collaborators - Maxwell Sterling, Kelly Jane Jones, Pedro Sousa and Vasco Alves - for its most curious new chapter.

Since bifurcating from his Ondness project in 2018, Bruno Silva’s Serpente has reeled off some of the craftiest percussive exploits in circulation for the past few years. ‘Dias da Aranha’ is notably the project’s most layered, intricate and fractious new volley, surely benefitting from extra hands in the mix who faithfully subsume their sound to Serpente’s ancient-futurist agenda.

Setting its warped metric grid with a taut solo salvo ‘Nunca Morras’, the Portuguese artist spars with Maxwell Sterling’s double bass and wind to resolve from loose-limbed clatter and prang to elegant 4th world flex on ‘Meio Ondness’, before channelling more animalistic urges in the prowling, purring designs of ’Símbolo V’, which also features highly skilled improvisor Kelly Jane Jones lending to its nervy, asymmetric pointillism, before chiming in with Pedro Sousa’s extended sax tekkerz, Pedro Alves’ uncertain static textures and Serpente’s sloshing drums in the most peculiar whorl of ‘Vala da Luz da Manhã’. Finally, ‘Ritos de Poeira’ pushes the project farther than ever with Sousa’s smeared, Zummo-esque brass creating a warped bed for Serpente’s drums to unfurl and contract in a superb play of rhythmic anticipation.