(Reprinted from the November 2023 issue of Downbeat magazine)
The title cut of Night Birds (Robalo), the third duo album by vocalist Sara Serpa and guitarist André Matos, borrows its sounds from the evening darkness—rustling leaves, hooting calls, whispers. Both Serpa and Matos excel at parsing lower amplitudes, so you expect the quiet. What comes as a surprise is the tune’s animation: For these two composers, the hidden world of nighttime is anything but asleep.
This same subdued activity permeates the rest of the album’s 11 tracks, all but one of them improvisatory originals. Serpa lends her clarion, straight-toned vocalese to these thoughtful compositions, her dexterous shifts in register enhancing the musical tension (as on “From A Distance” and “Bergman’s Island”) and her clean vocal attacks accentuating the motivic passages (on “Carlos” and Bela Bartok’s “Bagatelle, Op. 6, Lento”).
In keeping with Serpa’s assertive melodicism, Matos’ playing is spare but pointed, bolstering the emotional intensity of harmonically stratified pieces like “Degrowth” and “Counting” (both featuring guest singer Sofia Jernberg) and “Watching You Grow,” an exercise in parallel motion between the voice and guitar. The latter piece also features a charming spoken word section by the couple’s son Lourenço; the young singer also appears on “Family,” a layered vocal track that pulses and bends around a rhythmic head (with drummer João Pereira).
While aurally striking, each of these tunes advances the album’s central message, clearest on “Lost Whale,” with its creaking intro, weird humming, oozing synth, and scratchy bowing (aided by cellist Okkyung Lee and keyboardist Dov Manski). Through these unsettling sounds, the duo voices the question, What do we leave for our children if we shut our eyes to the destruction of our planet?