Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti & Frank Rosaly - O

On their new EP titled “O” we experience the evolution of the multifarious musical journey of drummer/composer Frank Rosaly and multi-instrumentalist Ibelisse Guardia Ferragutti, released on International Anthem October 16, 2026. O finds center in loose polyrhythm, pulse, trance, and longevity, interweaving contemplation of their Latinx backgrounds and vast sonic textures with deft craftsmanship.

Fascinated by prodigious sonic spaces that unfold over time, Ferragutti and Rosaly make way for storytelling and rumination. Both authors are adept in constructing music that feels like a pilgrimage, illuminating the elusive into something tangible, while reserving space for the listener to be immersed in micro-sonic detail.

On O, Ferragutti and Rosaly create vast and dark landscapes that elicit sounds without origin, layers of field recordings and processed noise in matrices of embedded rhythms, and, of course, drumming. Improvisation and experimentation is key to the material’s development, where the two artists’ shared vision and careful sonic guardianship coalesces.

The music is inspired in part by landforms and flora that provided life for Ferragutti and Rosaly’s ancestors. O (Taíno, meaning “mountain”) takes a focused journey into Puerto Rican and Caribbean cultural practices. Forms like Bomba, Plena, Rumba, Batá, Vodou, Cumbia and Dub blend into new, imagined worlds, recontextualizing traditional elements with drums and synthesizers, marrying these practices into experimentation, speculation and worlding. O’s musical meditations constitute a form of protest against hegemonic ascendancy. As a response, O’s spirit seeks to foreground what matters most: its people and their cultural heritage.

Behind all this experimentation lies a deep layer which investigates Rosaly’s Puerto Rican roots and his shared experiences on the island with Ferragutti, where “the land unfolded and revealed itself” to them. “Insects, amphibians, waterfalls, deep jungles, and massive green landforms offered poignant insight to my ancestry,” says Rosaly. “The territory plays an ancient game of telephone with my three-times great grandmother, through the jungle’s canopy.” He shares, further, of his transmissions from the island:

“The sound of coqui tethers her to me. For one hundred and fifty years the frogs and jungle transmit the whispers of a recently freedwoman, una liberta. Finally, the transmission meets my ears.

She tells me of her dreams: Children with beautiful dark skin and soft hands. She dreams of land her own; a small garden where she grows her own yucca. A mango tree…

She dreams of Loíza, where she hears she can dance without curfew, drink rum, and receive transmissions of her grandmothers over the sound of the barriles de bomba. This, I hear.”

Ferragutti receives as well, and shares:

“Upon arrival in Puerto Rico my eyes teared up instantly. It was a combination of that lush humidity embracing you like a giant intangible warmth, and the sudden opening of a memory gateway of my beloved Brazil. My youth growing up there while eating dirt and lemon balm at my grandparent’s garden. That soil that carries resonating songs non-stop, the joyful afternoons and the shared palpitating Caribbean/South American DNA of communal bliss. A way of life that just unfolds by itself with a cadence of orchestrated rainforest and pulsating drums echoing at dusk. It is the tongue of memory, noise and elation embedded in the land that keeps chanting, spinning and tutoring in my and our imaginaries”

O follows the release of Ferragutti and Rosaly’s celebrated album MESTIZX, which came via International Anthem & Nonesuch Records in May 2024.