CD Review: Pedra Preta…a promising CD by a tight band, filled with diverse music played at a high level of musicianship

lrgArtist: Pedra Preta
Title: Your Choice
Label: Unit Records
Genre: Afro-beat / Dub / Jazz

CD review by Matt Cole

Pedra Preta is an international trio, with members from Brazil, Italy, and Switzerland, and with a sound rooted in jazz but with many influences and components.  Their album Your Choice was released in 2010 on the Swiss label Unit Records.  The band includes Munir Hossn on guitars and vocals (and most of the songwriting), Toni Schiavano on electric bass, and Flo Reichle on drums and percussion.

Overall, the band has a nicely varied sound, ranging from music light and smooth (“Deja-Vu de Djavan” and “Yahlee” are good examples) to proggy (title track “Your Choice” has elements that reminded me of Yes), to funky rock (“Lasquinei Preso Em Paris”), to Sub-Saharan (“Rendez-Vous En Reunion”).  Often, multiple influences can be heard in a single song; album opener “Deja-Vu…” starts off with a bluesy, flamenco, finger-picked guitar which is soon joined by a popping and funky bass that would be home in the dancy pop of many African nations complemented by jazzy drums.  On a number of occasions, the band makes some sudden, tight shifts of rhythm and feel, and make them feel natural and not at all contrived; album closer “Roy” is a notable example of this.  Throughout the album, the band displays a patient use of volume which it uses to great effect; this allows the louder and/or more energetic portions of the individual songs and CD as a whole to have a greater impact on the listener.

Individually, the musicians display high levels of talent and creativity.  Guitarist Hossn shows a wide range of playing; he goes from Spanish classical sounds (“Ten To”) and gentle Ben Monder-like technical facility (“Teclas De Mon Frere”) to sheets of proggy fusion (“Roy”), stripped-down Brandon Seabrook-like intensity (“Lasquieni Preso Em Paris”), and intricate Afropop guitar (“Que Guell”) with ease.  Bassist Schiavano ranges from funky popping lines on “Deja-Vu…” and “Que Guell” to taking the lead with a flurry of notes on “Rendez-Vous…”.  His interplay with the other musicians is tight, and his dialogue with Hossn is especially notable on “Yahlee.”  Drummer Reichle plays with control and intensity, playing intricate duple and triple polyrhythms on “Your Choice” and sparse, angular Latin rhythms on “Fusama.”

Overall, this is a promising CD by a tight band, filled with diverse music played at a high level of musicianship, rooted in jazz sensibilities but with many integral components which are combined well.  The communication between the band members is impressive, as is their patience in allowing enough time for the music to develop properly.  The album is gentle enough to appeal to a wider crowd than is usually into cutting edge fusions of multiple musics, but diverse and complicated enough to stay interesting.  With Your Choice, we have yet more evidence of a vital and original European music movement which happily combines jazz and an olio of other influences into new and lively sounds.