Based in Cologne but shaped by years spent living and working across Germany, Brazil, Denmark and France, Luise Volkmann is a saxophonist, composer and bandleader who approaches sound as something fluid, social and constantly shifting. Her work moves between disciplines and borders, informed as much by cultural exchange and organisation as by composition itself. Throughout her creative output, she expands her musical vocabulary by embracing improvisation, collaboration and experimentation with an adventurous sense of curiosity.
That context lies at the centre of her latest collaboration with Brazilian guitarist and singer Kiko Dinucci, one of the defining voices in contemporary Brazilian music. Known for blending punk, folk, samba and Afro-jazz influences, Kiko has long occupied a musical world built on friction and hybridity, making the pairing with Luise feel somehow inevitable. Together, the two artists have spent the last three years forging an idiosyncratic musical language that blends Brazilian acoustic traditions into European jazz and improvised music,.
The seeds of that collaboration were planted in 2023 when Luise travelled to São Paulo for a residency. Returning to a country where she’d previously lived for a year as a student, she found herself reconnecting not only with place but with the possibility of new musical encounters. In Kiko, she discovered what the project describes as a “profound counterpoint,” an artistic foil capable of taking her sound into unfamiliar sphere while still meeting it with instinctive understanding.
Their partnership developed further through live performances across Europe, including appearances at Café Oto, where the chemistry between the two musicians sharpened in real time. By the time they entered o-Ton studios in Cologne last summer, the electricity of those performances remained fully intact. The resulting album, Canto de Olho builds on their 2024 debut Enxame while moving decisively into new musical areas.
Translated as “a brief look, caught from out of the corner of your eye,” the record embraces a feeling of movement and instability, threading serpentine improvisations through song-like structures inspired by quotes dedicated to the Orixás, ancestral deities based in West African Yoruba traditions and central to Afro-Brazilian Candomblé practices. Across six expansive tracks, Luise’s alto sax moves between softness and insistence, sometimes drifting delicately around Kiko’s guitar work, elsewhere colliding against it with fierce intensity.
Opening track “Olhar de canto de olho (Ire Baba),” offers a vivid introduction to the album’s world via an expansive eleven-minute outing that starts with the gentle flutter of acoustic guitar chords and soft quiver of sax tones. Gradually developing with hushed vocal elements which bubble away quietly, the song intricately tumbles into a laid back groove that gathers pace throughout while Luise and Kiko’s instrumental performances swell into a lively surge of intense strums and dancing lead sax work.
“Acho bonito” slows things down and floats into a more stripped back, experimental scene where sparse instrumental elements ebb and flow to form a minimal slice of avant-garde instrumental composition. “Sinto falta desse sentimento (Edu Ionan)” arrives with the elegant flourish of soothing saxophone textures and mellow acoustic guitar plucks, taking listeners on a charming musical journey with dreamy aesthetic and playful performance. With “Cheiro de frevo,” the rustle of muted strums and subtly uneasy sax leads rolls into a moodier scene where jittery rhythms and dynamic performance presents an engaging listening experience from start to finish.
“Com flores (Sonso abe)” forms with pattering rhythms and hypnotic melodic loops, expanding with hurried energy and slick rise and fall to offer an engrossing soundscape. Closing the album with “Antonico,” Luise sets up the piece with tender leads before Kiko’s rhythmic backing enters to deliver a superb finale that progresses with warm vocals and gentle instrumental performance, offering a memorable conclusion to the pair’s stellar sophomore record.
Listen to Canto de Olho below
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