Robert Glasper Experiment & Bilal

Locorotondo is a picturesque village nestled in the Itria Valley, right in the heart of the enchanting area known as the Land of the Trulli. A scenery straight out of another era, which for nine years has hosted the Locus Festival, a series of free-entry concerts that from the very start has stood out for its alternative, refined taste.

This year the festival hosted some big names from the black music scene: Cody Chesnutt on the first day, and the Robert Glasper Experiment, backed by Bilal, on the second. And it's this latter performance we'll be discussing now.

Robert Glasper and Bilal are two remarkably similar figures: both occupy a crucial place in the nu-soul revival of the last decade, and we could even say they represent its last bastions, given the deep identity crisis this genre — once so vibrant and full of life — seems to have been going through for a few years now. Two names that, at least when it comes to their presence on the more mainstream scene, are almost always tagged with the word "featuring".

Take Bilal's case: the list of names he's collaborated with is staggering, major figures like Common, Roots, Beyoncé, Solange, Erykah Badu and so on. And yet his solo work struggles to make any real dent in the American charts. Listening to it, it's not hard to guess why: with no interest in stylistic compromise, his records pursue a rugged, oblique take on nu-soul, a crossroads of avant-garde, art-rock and soul in the vein of D'Angelo.

"Airtight's Revenge", his album released in 2010, is one of the finest soul gems of recent years, and at the same time one of its most complex and hardest to grasp incarnations. Tracks that gradually shed conventional song structure in favor of a kind of progressive stream of consciousness — always controlled, never an end in itself.

This isn't the place to go into it in detail, but the gist is: track down this record without hesitation, unjustly overlooked by much of the critical establishment since its release. Bilal then returned this very year with a new album, "A Love Surreal", calmer and more romantic than its predecessor, a lesson in class and elegance. The oblique geometries that define his sound are still there, but the feel is more familiar and "immediate".

Pianist Robert Glasper, meanwhile, shot to critical acclaim with the wonderfully varied "Black Radio", released last year: a meeting point of jazz, nu-soul and hip-hop, it distilled the spirit of recent years' Black "alternative" scene into a single, cohesive statement. It features an array of influential names, Bilal among them, on a record that reins in the jazz drive of the Experiment outfit in favor of a graceful flirtation with pop. That jazz vein, however, comes roaring back in all its overflowing energy when the band performs live.

At 10pm the Experiment take the stage with their now well-honed lineup: Robert Glasper on piano, Derrick Hodge on bass, Chris Dave on drums and Casey Benjamin on vocoder and keyboards. A few sound issues are promptly sorted out with great composure and skill, and then things kick off in style: the "Black Radio" tracks played at the start (including a cover of Sade's "Cherish The Day") erupt into thrilling instrumental codas, by turns smooth and fierce.

Robert Glasper delights the crowd with his irresistible touch, while bass and drums lock into hypnotic, driving grooves. Casey Benjamin uses the vocoder in a way that's completely at odds with the excessive, gimmicky use it gets in the mainstream world: in his hands it becomes a tool for utterly abstracting the voice, turning it into a nebula drifting through the ether, a psychedelic, futuristic sound that at first feels almost forbidding, then turns wonderfully dreamy.

His interpretations transfigure the many classics — Black and otherwise — performed during the show: Daft Punk's "Get Lucky" becomes a paranoid, exquisitely sci-fi chant; Common's "The Light" sounds even more desolate and nocturnal; Radiohead's "All I Need" is almost unrecognizable, a formless sonic flow that erupts into a breathtaking coda, with the instruments chasing each other in a whirlwind of mounting intensity.

Bilal's arrival midway through the show marks the evening's high point: "Levels", a track from "Airtight's Revenge", immediately showcases the soul-singer's extraordinary vocal range, able to leap from a shrill, almost feminine falsetto to sudden explosive bursts; his is a pure stream of consciousness, as if in a trance, with the chorus repeating like a mantra… and you find yourself wishing that moment would never end. Casey Benjamin picks up the sax and it's tears: the voice becomes one with the instruments, by now wild and untamable, with that same refrain — "Play this song, play this song, play this song if you love me" — gradually dissolving like a dream.

The Experiment are remarkably at ease: no break between one track and the next, shifting moods flowing into each other without a hitch. Hodge unleashes a bass solo that raises goosebumps, almost sounding like a Spanish guitar; Benjamin cuts loose on brass and reeds, whether sax, trumpet or clarinet. At times, after a relentless jam, the band circles back to where it started with sublime instrumental melodies.

It's astonishing how Glasper steers the flow of the performance: he's the one dictating the tempos and the sounds, all the while fixing the crowd with a stern, sardonic stare.

"All Matter", perhaps the finest track on "Airtight's Revenge", is simply spine-tingling: it's hard to put into words Bilal's vocal performance… you're left with the sheer sense of watching an artist from another planet. After the first chorus, the band stretches the song into a blazing instrumental interlude, then Bilal returns, sings the final lines under his breath, rallies for one last refrain, and the curtain falls. The applause erupts before the song has even ended.

The band leaves the stage, but soon returns to perform a moving rendition of "Butterfly", taken from Bilal's latest record.

Two hours that are truly hard to forget: immersed in a dreamlike setting, cooled by a light breeze, we witnessed a display of rare mastery, one that bears out everything that's been said — and everything that can be said — about these champions of today's Black music. God bless Locus Festival.

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