“This is Gonçalo Almeida’s fifth solo album, sympathetically and sensitively recorded by fellow improvisor Dirk Serries in a monastery chapel in Brecht, Belgium in December 2022. Solo improvisation allows, and thus requires, the musician to approach more deliberately the problem of long-term structure, since one is in principle fully in control – both consciously and intuitively – of how the piece is going to develop over time. The value of inquiring whether Almeida envisioned the title Ciclos (cycles) before, after, or even during the performance, may depend on how much authority one ascribes to the singular perspective of the author. Though such a title will decidedly prompt any listener’s mind toward notions of time and structure, this listener’s ear at least was more immediately drawn in by the instrument’s (and the performer’s!) ability to express, meaningfully and authoritatively, a continuously expanding vocabulary of textural, timbral, spectral and affective variations upon what might have seemed at first to be an impossibly tiny amount of material.       When considering an album of improvised double bass solos, the first and most obvious point of reference will always be Peter Kowald’s Was Da Ist, which consisted of no less than 23 concise expositions (almost all less than four minutes in duration) of musical ideas or problems specific to the instrument. In the case of Ciclos, the choice to focus instead on exploring only one or two such ideas over the length of two LP sides allows not only for an entirely different listening experience, but also drew this listener’s mind into Almeida’s profound thinking on the nature of time, structure, control and intent in the context of solo improvisation.” Johanna Monk