Beseeching, smouldering, melancholy, impassioned. Live in Oslo is all these things and plenty more besides, a glorious recording capturing the dazzling inaugural summit featuring European maestros of restraint Trespass Trio and rising radical of free-improv, Portuguese trumpeter Susana Santos Silva.

An idea long in gestation, this no-brainer collaboration finally hatched into reality after the Trespass Trio were invited to perform at the August 2018 edition of the Blow Out Festival in Norway. Under the instigation of one of the event organisers, drumming don Ståle Liavik Solberg, Silva accompanied Per Zanussi, Martin Küchen and Raymond Strid onstage for a set of gospel-tinged, sultry-noir interpretations of five Trespass classics, a stellar pick of broody stakeouts lifted from the ensemble’s acclaimed Clean Feed full-lengths, Bruder Beda (2012), Human Encore (recorded with legendary US saxophonist Joe McPhee in 2013) and The Spirit of Pitesti (2017).

Silva’s singular artistic approach, drawing on elements of jazz, classical and contemporary music, as well as textural sound art and dance, has already resulted in a remarkable body of work, her growing catalogue of staggeringly inventive releases issued on a succession of notable imprints, including Intakt, Relative Pitch, Clean Feed and Rogueart, while her charge sheet of te Catherine Christer Hennix.

Her ingenious contributions here add another sublime dimension to Trespass Trio’s mournfully cinematic creepers, Silva’s imploring melodies entwining with Küchen’s sultry sax in declamatory evangelical unions worthy of the Ayler brothers, as Zanussi’s taut low-end pulses cling like stubborn limpets latched onto beleaguered heartstrings and Strid alternates between bubbly floor-tom rumble and brushed-snare shuffle.

Listening to Live in Oslo you would be excused for thinking you were experiencing a genuine long-in-the-tooth quartet, rather than the first-time assignation of group meets guest. Trio and Silva are both operating here at the very peak of their telepathic powers, totally committed to the slow-burn, twinned agents-in-stealth, combining their tender semaphores on this touchstone album which bristles with an exquisite, sombre, haunting beauty.

All compositions by Martin Küchen (STIM/NcB), track 3 by Per Zanussi (Tono), Raymond Strid (STIM/NcB) and Martin Küchen and track 4 by Leo Küchen (STIM/NcB), Isak Küchen(STIM/NcB) and Martin Küchen

Recorded the 17th of August 2018 at Blow Out Festival, Oslo, Norway | Recorded by Stig Gunnar Ringen | Mixed by Per Zanussi | Mastered by Ola Rubin
Produced by Trespass Trio | Executive production by Pedro Costa for Trem Azul | Designe by Travassos