In the vast land of free improvisation, where logic often takes the backseat and intuition rides shotgun with a paper map drawn by dreams, "Flying Slippers" feels like an elegantly derailed train that keeps finding new, delightful tracks as it careers onward. Or maybe it’s less train and more enchanted footwear - slightly too large, flapping joyously against cobblestones as they take flight without ever asking permission.

This trio - Luca Tilli on cello, Sebi Tramontana on trombone, and Steve Beresford on piano (plus a flock of little objects he’s surely smuggled in from some mischievous cabinet) - operates like a telepathic triangle. What binds them isn’t any strict compositional plan, but rather a shared trust in absurdity, surprise, and sudden clarity. "Flying Slippers", recorded live at Casa delle Arti in Cernusco sul Naviglio in November 2024, unfolds in six parts that feel more like scenes from a surrealist short film than traditional tracks.

Let’s take a moment to appreciate the cast!

Steve Beresford, that indefatigable trickster of the British experimental scene, has spent over four decades delighting in subverting the expected - whether through his work with the London Improvisers Orchestra or his collaborations with John Zorn, Han Bennink, or, say, The Slits. He’s as likely to drop a broken toy on a grand piano as he is to quote Bach in a moment of sudden sincerity.

Sebi Tramontana, Sicilian by origin and sun-drenched in tone and temperament, is a trombonist who approaches his instrument as if it were made of melted crayons - bending, stretching, and splattering color in all directions. His work with giants like Joëlle Léandre, Mats Gustafsson, and Paul Lovens has always been more than sound: it’s a gesture, a grin, sometimes a philosophical shrug.

Then there’s Luca Tilli, whose cello veers effortlessly from mournful gravitas to comic skronk, as if switching costumes backstage. His deep roots in avant-garde music (working with everyone from Tristan Honsinger to Zu and David Tibet) give him a rhythmic and textural agility that makes the cello feel like a breathing, blinking animal.

Across "Flying Slippers", the trio offers a kind of sonic slapstick that’s never just for laughs. There are pratfalls, yes - but they’re the kind that make you cry from surprise. There’s an undercurrent of warmth, a palpable respect for silence, and a commitment to not oversteering the improvisational vehicle. It’s as if they’re saying: “Let the music trip over its own shoelaces - it’s got wings”.

"Part 1" opens with uncertainty, as if the instruments are still brushing their teeth, finding their voices after a night of dreaming. A whispering cello shivers next to the trombone’s foghorn yawn, while Beresford lightly rains porcelain clinks from above. Then, suddenly, they coalesce - not in harmony, but in a shared amusement at having collided so gracefully.

By "Part 3", the trio has fully taken off. Tilli saws and plucks at ideas like a carpenter in a windstorm, Tramontana barks and flutters through a vocabulary that oscillates between dadaist poetry and toddler tantrums, and Beresford plays as though he’s giving a TED Talk on how not to play the piano. Yet somehow, it’s beautiful.

What makes "Flying Slippers" feel special - beyond the evident skill and seasoned ears involved - is its emotional intelligence. The album isn't afraid of silence, nor of sounding ridiculous. It embraces a kind of profound lightness, a phrase used in the liner notes that feels both oxymoronic and precisely right. This is music that wears its intellect loosely, like a wizard in a bathrobe.

Improvised music can often risk feeling insular, like a party you weren’t invited to - but not here. This is a dinner where the guests speak five different languages, gesticulate wildly, and somehow, everyone still leaves full. And happy.

"Flying Slippers" doesn’t just offer improvisation - it offers a lesson in listening. In being ready. In laughing when the shoe goes flying off your foot, then realizing it’s better off in the air anyway.

Recommended if you like: Derek Bailey’s ghost stealing your lunch, Tom & Jerry scoring a Jean-Luc Godard film, or the inexplicable joy of watching a leaf blow across a courtyard in perfect rhythm.