Brio is a band from Zagreb, Croatia. This duo was formed somewhere in 1999 and played its first show in 2001. Since its formation, and with members coming from Zagreb punk-rock, noise-rock scene, Brio has devoted itself to practicing and performing free-improvised music. Brio has made a couple of DIY records, two of which (At the playground, What we got ourselves here is a problem in communication; both recorded live in 2005) were reviewed by Eugene Chadbourne in All Music Guide under avant-garde section and got great reviews. Throughout the years Brio played at all major croatian festivals dedicated to improvisation and modern music (Thirsty Ear Festival, NO Jazz Festival, Improspections, …) often opening/supporting for players like Peter Brotzmann, Mats Gustafsson, Shoji Hano, Triage, Zu, The Chicago Underground Duo, The Ex, Mathew Shipp… After playing strictly acoustic, no amps-no PA music for almost ten years, in 2009 Brio finally found a suitable practice room and shifted its focus back on straight-to-the amp electric guitar and classic four piece drum-kit set up. From the start till now, Brio has been completely self-managed band.
Brio’s live performances are often described by critics as rain of meteors crushing everything in front of it, not leaving you a moment for respite (Igor Jelinović, Radio SC). Taking free improvisation as its foundation, Brio is dedicated to creating a music of the moment, fully expressing the whole range of human emotions, resulting in music encompassing full dynamic and intensity ranges, from light breeze to avalanche. Although without predefined metric and tempo, drumming is polyrithmical, swinging, giving strong pulse, with the guitar singing above or growling below, sometimes almost creating unmovable, static wall of sound. Influenced by A.Schoenberg concepts of free atonality, inverto-retrograde serial techniques of A. Webern, J. Cage free use of time, Brio is creating lines of independant microtonal clusters combined with heavy blues-noise riffing, with a rhythm section at ground shaking volumes as its base. Brio is not satisfied even to be categorizaed as free improvisation collective. This music will leave the minds of audience perplexed, and their bodies well agitated.
Brio
Brio plays in
