To counteract the tediousness of pandemic restrictions, Luís Guerreiro, Jorge Nuno and João Valinho created a trio whose music is intended to act as a form of escapism. Hugely intense, this music has an energy that ensures slow electrical discharges akin to doom metal, but which sends notes constantly into space via a permanent sychedelic adventurism through an unshaken faith in free improvisation. While Guerreiro and Nuno play trumpet and guitar with an energy that sends the music soaring out of orbit, João Valinho’s drums do the opposite, bringing it back down to ground, spreading each concert to every corner possible between heaven and earth.

Recognised for his talent on the double bass and the lute for Art Blakey, Thelonious Monk and Earl Hines, Ahmed Abdul-Malik kept his deep exploration of an Arabic- and African-influenced form of jazz for his own albums. Aimed at reviving the work of Abdul-Malik (1927-1993), who was also a philosopher and pedagogue, Pat Thomas, Joel Grip, Antonin Gerbal and Seymor Wright formed a quartet in London in an attempt to correct the historic amnesia surrounding his legacy as a composer. The group, called Ahmed, performs an extremely original free jazz repertoire in a beautiful struggle to ensure the work of an artiste who invented a unique and personal style is not erased.