“We sure are alive”, writes Pedro Melo Alves in the liner notes of “Lumina”. It’s true, the music inside is a survival chant: we made it, after two years of a science fiction-like nightmare. And suddenly, there’s some light. The Portuguese composer and drummer was the winner in 2016 of the Bernardo Sassetti Award with the first version of his Omniae Ensemble concept. At the invitation of the Guimarães Jazz Festival in 2020, during a brief interval between lockdowns, he transformed the original septet to a 23-elements large ensemble, adding electronics, tuba, clarinet, flutes, bassoon, cello, classical guitar, three singers and a maestro (Pedro Carneiro, also known as a percussionist in both the contemporary classical and improvised music fields) to the original mix and writing new, defying and more inclusive, in terms of vocabularies and grammars, scores for it. “How do we even start to look for all that ungraspable light?”, Melo Alves asks. Well, this is how.
- Ubi (30:57)
- Phelia (21:00)
- Onírea (22:59)
Lumina
“BEST REVELATION GROUP” El Intruso – 14th Annual International Critics Poll 2021
“With Lumina , Pedro Melo Alves continues to surprise us. The album seems to constitute THE ACME OF HIS MUSICAL THOUGHT, which has now undoubtedly reached maturity. CONTAINED MADNESS, A CLEVER MIX OF GENRES, GREAT FORMAL FREEDOM as well as a VERY SURE TASTE FOR THE BEAUTIFUL“
Julien Aunos, Citizen Jazz
“It is A FASCINATING NEW MUSIC SUITE (…) Melo Alves is dedicated to both CURIOSITY AND TRADITION EQUALLY, and here he dares to express his ideas in A NEW LANGUAGE.”
Karl Ackermann, All About Jazz
“«Lumina» demands repeated listening to grasp its multitude of INTRICATE SONIC LANDSCAPES but it guarantees TASTEFUL AND STIMULATING FOOD FOR THE CURIOUS MINDS as well as SUPERIOR DEGREES OF EMOTIONAL AND AESTHETICAL RESONANCE.“
Eyal Hareuveni, Salt Peanuts
“…we are taken to a universe none of us visited before. It is OPEN AND FREE as it is STRUCTURED, MELODIC AND SEARCHING. It is MAGNIFICENT AND AMBITIOUS and reveals us AN EXCITING MUSICIAN AND COMPOSER WITH BOTH AMBITION AND VISION.”
Tor Hammerø, Nettavisen
