‘The Devil, Probably’ is both the title of an album and the name adopted by the trio of musicians who made it. Patrick Shiroishi, Àlex Reviriego and Vasco Trilla, who are key figures in the improvisational avant garde, engaged in an epistolary creative process where they sent audio files to each other, and each improvised on top of what was there – an exquisite corpse that allowed them to circumvent the geographical distance that separated them. The result of that process is the record seen atop these lines, which has just been released by Urpa i musell.

The record’s artwork nods to the musicians’ past lives as extreme metal aficionados. As the portrayal of a style of music that can no longer be framed in that scene, the cover presents a plant that could have once been deemed dangerous (a ‘Kalanchoe × houghtonii’, a highly invasive, parasitic species) at its most inoffensive: as a specimen that’s been desiccated for its catalogation in a herbarium. The cover design was blind-embossed onto second-hand blotting paper that the Botanical Institute of Barcelona uses to dry out plants before entering them in their herbarium – an answer to the stains, creases, and conceivable rot that's visible on the covers.

The Devil, Probably
Patrick Shiroishi (saxophones) @patrickshiroishi
Àlex Reviriego (double bass) @alex_reviriego
Vasco Trilla (percussion) @vascotrilla

Released by Urpa i musell @urpaimusell_

Designed with generous scientific advice from Neus Ibáñez (@neusibanezcortina), curator of the BC herbarium at the Institut Botànic de Barcelona (@ibb_botanic)
Additional art by Pere Xirau @pre.enhancement.of.light
Printed at L’Anacrònica (@lanacronica) and others