HUGO COSTA & PHILIPP ERNSTING – THE ART OF CRASHING by Eyal Hareuveni.

“Portuguese alto sax player Hugo Costa collaborates regularly with German drummer Philipp Ernsting. Both reside in Rotterdam and play together in the trios Anticlan (with guitarist Josué Amador) and Albatre (with bassist Gonçalo Almeida). Their first duo album The Art of Crashing was recorded at Studio SanteBoutique in Rotterdam in 2020, and obviously, refers to the long and dynamic lineage of free jazz sax-drums duos. The thoughtful, resourceful and energetic Costa and Ernsting are well-versed in this seminal lineage but want to suggest their own perspective on such dialogs, based on their own close mutual understanding and immediate and organic dynamics. And both Costa and Ernsting also share a similar conception of rhythm and its many forms – layered, pulse-free, abstract, playful, or a slow-cooking and percolating one, often shape-shifting within the same improvisation, and especially on the three extended improvisations. They keep feeding each other’s with loose melodic ideas and rhythmic patterns, trusting the other’s to develop them further and deeper. This meeting leaves enough space for the individual voices of Costa and Ernsting but also highlights their assertive power as a duo.” Salt Peanuts – Norway