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Quilibri is hard to place within a hard and fast genre. The group features an unusual line-up with two percussionists, a mostly acoustic guitarist, a bassist and a soprano saxophonist. To quote Ezra Pound, Eco Fato’s gentle lyricism is like “Petals on a wet, black bough.” Moisture and the idea of the chaotic yet organic structure of nature find its way into the music. As it says in the notes to the album: “This music has been recorded in Gianavella, in Val Pellice, during the days of the flood (a time when even snails were trying to save their own lives), altogether in a great big room, fully permeable to both a humid cold and to sound a time of rain, a time of twittering which peeps out between one piece and the other.” The music has an air of intimacy where the soft strum of an acoustic guitar mixes with refined patterns of handheld percussion and the breathing soprano saxophone of Andrea Ayassot, who is the sole composer behind all the tracks. However, Eco Fato, is a group effort managing to convey the melodic, organic sounds of wood, water and steel in a music that draws on Eastern as well as Western influences.

[All About Jazz USA, Jakob Baekgaard]