Ilaria Capalbo: 'The Brightest Sun'

Composer and bassist Ilaria Capalbo brings a new freedom with ‘The Brightest Sun’.

Each track on The Brightest Sun seems to take us in different directions all at once. Opening with Arrival, we hear for the first time the freedom in composition and improvisation in Capalbo’s bass and electronics alongside Thomas Backman (alto sax, clarinets), Fredrik Nordström (tenor sax). Andreas Hourdakis (guitar) and Henrik Jäderberg (drums).

The sonorous bass clarinet opening to Prophecy expands with the addition of sax and the whole quintet as Capalbo’s bass sings out. We come next to the beautiful Cosmos Earth and a lovely sax/bass duet introduction to Two Visions.

The delightful Little Tiger once more brings us bass clarinet, which seems to sit perfectly alongside the leader’s bass: as we hear once more in the intro section of Ode. If Capalbo was looking for her ‘sound’ on The Brightest Sun, then that duet does it for me.

Once we reach the title track at the end of this lovely album, we seem to have truly found the wonder of the sun.

Capalbo wrote The Brightest Sun during pregnancy and the first years of motherhood. She says: “This album grew out of a time where everything felt immediate and transformed. I composed in fragments - through voice memos, sketches, and notes written whenever there was time. I wanted to preserve that rawness and vulnerability, without polishing away the emotion. Looking back, I remember that period as both fractured and full of wonder, and I wanted the music to reflect exactly that.”

‘The Brightest Sun’ is available via Bluenord Records