quarta-feira, 21 de dezembro de 2016

Nuc Box Hums

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS408, Lisbon 2016



















1. prime swarm - 03'43''
2. E.F. Wood's original apidictor recordings - 07'29''
3. mud hive torture - 04'13''
4. the nuptial flight of the virgin queen - 04'32''
5. drone assembly - 02'27''
6. sexual suicide - 03'33''
7. waggle dance - 04'34''
8. urban pollinator habitat installation guide - 04'05''
9. nucleus colony collapse - 02'29''
10. Einstein and the bees - 04'31''
11. afterswarm - 04'50''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello
Adam Goodwin - Double Bass
Kriton b. - D
axophone

Recorded in October 2016, Berlin
Cover design Carlos Santos



Reviews

A friction quartet, at times quite energized. In addition to viola, cello, and double bass, the instrumentation is notable for Kriton B.’s daxophone, a rather obscure instrument in the class of “friction idiophone,” which consists of a wooden block with contact microphones that can be fitted with a variety of different wooden “tongues,” which are then played with a bow and a second piece of wood called a “dax” that is used to adjust pitch and timbre. The resulting music exists outside the idea of notes, scales, or any other neat Western organization of sound. Still, the daxophone has an affinity with the strings: an impressive array of rasping, scraping, whining sounds, all undoubtedly connected to the pressure and tension of objects rubbing together, and which fit snuggly within more rough-hewn methods for playing string instruments. One is reminded of skull resonance, of sound as a vibration transmitted through a solid object rather than through the air.


The album and song titles are all related to beekeeping, although I hear less Kent Carter’s “insect music” than perhaps the creaks and groans of the wooden nuc boxes themselves as they thrum with activity, as though the contact mics had been embedded in the very walls of the artificial hive. The pieces range from the creaking drones of wind whipping through an old barn to incredibly tense knots of activity, the sense of torsion palpable, like branches being bent and twisted into splinters or the sound beneath the waves as a ship gets tossed against the rocks. The daxophone pushes the three string players away from clean tones and traditional playing: instead, they meet its strange challenge by rubbing strings, bowing wooden bodies, plying out harmonics, or pizzicato attacks with no particular note in mind. Dan Sorrells (The Free Jazz Collective)

Creative Sources continues to roll out the releases, with 26 albums in the first two months of 2017, and three more so far this month (i.e. between the time I made that note for myself and wrote this entry). Many are duos (plus a few solos), and relatively many are for large ensembles, but even considering only the size of group that fits more into my project, there are more albums than I can really hear. I just want to state that explicitly, since I don't want readers to think that I hear everything: There could be things I'd very much enjoy but never hear (and, of course, not only on Creative Sources). Some of the albums are actually rather "inside." I do my best to pick out what might seem appealing. (I should probably also note that just because I hear something doesn't mean that I'm going to have something to say. And maybe I should add further that I try not to write anything when I have nothing to say, but I'm not sure that I always manage it. I start feeling obligated sometimes.... Or simply vain.)


That said, it came as a bit of a surprise to see Dan Sorrells's survey of Ernesto Rodrigues a few weeks ago on the Free Jazz Blog. It was a rather meaty entry, and concerned music that is less "classic" (relatively speaking) than what usually dominates the space there. Even then, it was a modest selection, and indeed only included releases featuring Rodrigues himself. (Many Creative Sources albums do not include Rodrigues, although so many do.) Among them was Nuc Box Hums, an album inspired by the sounds of bees, and a release I had already made a note to hear. Now I have. Besides Ernesto on viola & son Guilherme on cello, Nuc Box Hums (recorded last October in Berlin) includes Adam Goodwin on double bass to form a string trio, as well as Kriton Beyer (b.1968, credited on this and other albums as "Kriton B.") on daxophone. It seems that B. most often plays harmonium, and indeed he plays harmonium on all three (at the time of this writing) albums on his series The Procrustean Bed. (Hearing these albums confirmed that I wanted to hear Nuc Box Hums.) The first release, apparently motivating the series, is Subterfuge with Liz Allbee & Richard Scott. Between vocalizing trumpet & the prominent harmonium with percussive accents, this stormy album is well worth hearing. (I strongly associate the harmonium itself with North Indian khayal singing, for which it became the most common melodic accompaniment in the twentieth century.) Parapraxes with Tomomi Adachi (voice) & Thea Farhadian (violin, also on at least two recent Creative Sources releases herself) might be described as something of a cross between recent Creative Sources vocal releases Monsters for breakfast & Natura Venomous, whereas the album that also includes Goodwin, Apophenia by B. & Vasana String Trio, is less striking. Nuc Box Hums might almost be said to be a redo of that, but here B. is on the daxophone, an instrument with which I was not previously familiar. Its name is derived from the badger, and it's said to be good at producing animal sounds; its closest relative, according to Wikipedia, is the musical saw. Apparently it involves electrical pickups & friction on a wooden body, and ends up sounding not so different from the violin family strings here — although the daxophone seems not to have been designed to produce tonal music. The result is a strange cacophony, perhaps rather closely based on the sounds of bees, at least at times. The second track explicitly mentions the "apidictor," a device to record hive activity, and this seems like one of the most "authentic" in that sense, although most tracks name something specific about the lives of bees. I'm not sure how much of this is really from bees, and how much of it is the musicians developing such (inspirational) sounds toward their own idiom, but I do like the idea of solidarity with bees. (We kept bees when I was young, so I know a bit of what they sound like.) Particularly given the similar sounds of the daxophone to the sorts of scrapes & buzzes that the string players use, homogeneity is a bit of a feature for the ensemble: It's almost a string quartet. After a slower start, the resulting intensity evokes albums like World of Objects & Phase/transitions (both featuring winds instead) for me, what with the difference that emerges from & sometimes returns to their instrumental consistency. The ensemble itself might be most similar to recent favorite Chant, although there often in a far more classical context — perhaps the affective result is actually most akin to something like Growing carrots in a concrete floor, another intense & unique sonic tapestry, albeit involving heavy use of electronics. Among recent releases involving Rodrigues, the most similar might be Amoa hi (an acoustic album) with Marco Scarassatti on the homemade "kraiser." (Among these comparisons, Nuc Box Hums might be said to share differing animalistic qualities with Amoa hi & World of Objects.) What does it mean for people to make bee sounds? One thing it obviously interrogates is our sense of distance or mediation. (One might characterize a simple recording of bees themselves as uninterrogated mediation.) What of "appropriation" from endangered species? (I might suggest that here we find an approach to bee sounds as "mere material" in a Laruellian sense. As a sonic thinker, this is a welcome way to work through such material for me.) There seems to be a grammar implied or emerging here, particularly as the bee-human assemblage undergoes historic changes. Nuc Box Hums is also finally a sonically intriguing album, whatever its inspiration might be. 13 March 2017. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

segunda-feira, 12 de dezembro de 2016

Fall

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS400, Lisbon 2016




















1. Silent Trees - 09'24''
2. Harvest Wind - 11'06''
3. Fallen Leaves - 14'13''
4. Floating Sunlight - 13'03''
5. Dusk - 09'39''




Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Emidio Buchinho - Electric Guitar
Ricardo Guerreiro - Computer

Recorded in November 2015, Amadora
Cover design Carlos Santos



Reviews

O trio constituído por Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Emídio Buchinho (guitarra eléctrica) e Ricardo Guerreiro (laptop) apresenta no disco “Fall” uma música que se enquadra na estética habitual da Creative Sources: pura improvisação livre, servindo-se de uma base de instrumentação electro-acústica, com aproximação à corrente “near-silence”. O disco abre como enigma, puro silêncio, só após dois minutos de é que se começam a ouvir pequenos sons. As intervenções instrumentais são mínimas, subtis, e o trio vai alimentando a música com disciplina e leveza. Viola e guitarra mostram-se particularmente discretos, só o feixe electrónico do computador se mostra mais visível, pontualmente. Apesar de puramente improvisada, alimentada com diálogos e mudanças de direcção, e enquadrada numa estética minimal, não deixa de haver também aqui uma certa toada atmosférica. Nuno Catarino (Bodyspace)


sábado, 10 de dezembro de 2016

Maat Mons

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS406, Lisbon 2016




















1. Maat Mons - 36'28''




Ernesto Rodrigues - Stroh Violin & Conduction
Maria Do Mar - Violin 
Miguel Mira - Cello 
João Madeira - Double Bass

Abdul Moimême - Classical Guitar & Clarinet
Andre Hencleeday - Tenor Psalterium & Radio
 
Maria Radich - Voice
Tiago Varela - Fan Organ
Paulo Curado - Flute
Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone
José Lencastre - Alto Saxophone 
Bruno Parrinha - Clarinet & Alto Clarinet
 
Paulo Galão - Bass Clarinet
Guillermo Torres - Pocket Trumpet
Eduardo Chagas - Trombone
Vítor Rua - Electric Guitar
Manuel Guimarães - Piano 
Carlos Santos - Synthesizer
Nuno Moita - Turntables
Monsieur Trinité - Percussion 
Pedro Santo - Percussion


Recorded in November 2016, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos



Reviews

As always, the geometry is of the n-dimensional sort. The number of dimensions that vary is impressive: membership, instrumentation, location, duration, and so on. Certainly, the overall shape of each VGO performance is highly variable, like a murmuration of birds, as I alluded to in a review of the earlier Lulu Auf dem Berg. VGO remains a compelling attempt to harness the timbral and dynamic range of an orchestra while maintaining the flexibility in structure and individual freedoms afforded by improvisation. Maat Mons is scaled back from the enormous undertaking of Quasar, released earlier in 2016 and featuring the largest group on record to date, with 46 members. The 21 musicians on Maat Mons are less than half that number, but as with all VGO performances, a mere head count reveals little about the direction the music will take. 


The piece rouses slowly, maintaining a low volume and a jittery, charged air of possibility as small groups of players make exploratory advances. But soon Rodrigues changes tack, and Maat Mons harkens back to the bigger free jazz-inspired sound of the group’s earliest recordings, as tapping cymbals and an animated bass line sketch out a shaky groove and the horns begin to raise their voices. As the music becomes more dynamic, illusions of figure and ground emerge in the unplaceable, shuffling timbre of nearly two dozen musicians. The listener is moved through the space in which the musicians are performing, one instrument momentarily the focal point, only to be subsumed in the din and the focus shifted to someone else, the foreground and background in constant flux. Three-quarters through the performance, the music drops to near silence, irregular dribbles of piano over a canvass of radio static and Maria Radich’s sibilant whispers. Dan Sorrells (The Free Jazz Collective)

Com uma VGO de 21 elementos, “Maat Mons” mostra-nos como o formato orquestral oferece, a uma abordagem regida pela liberdade e pela espontaneidade, múltiplas possibilidades ao nível das dinâmicas e do timbre. O registo é abstracto e textural, como em anteriores discos da formação, mas a emergência de figuras rítmicas e melódicas, ainda que breves ou transfiguradas, introduz nas tramas uma influência do free jazz que se tem tornado cada vez mais evidente na música recente de Rodrigues. Um ou vários instrumentos vão ganhando relevância no caudal sonoro, para logo mergulharem no todo e darem lugar a outros, dando-nos a impressão de que o que está atrás toma a dianteira ou o que acontecia à boca de cena se retira para o fundo, num vai e vem que não só anula a ideia de solo e acompanhamento como interfere com a geral movimentação em fluxo. Dois membros do ensemble prendem-nos, no entanto, a atenção, pois o que fazem vai definindo os contornos das formas em metamorfose: o pianista Manuel Guimarães e a vocalista Maria Radich. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

quinta-feira, 8 de dezembro de 2016

dé-col//age

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS397, Lisbon 2016


















1. dé-col//age - 02'23''
2. dé-col//age - 01'38'' 
3. dé-col//age - 03'58''  
4. dé-col//age - 05'58''  
5. dé-col//age - 06'37''  
6. dé-col//age - 04'22'' 
7. dé-col//age - 02'02'' 
8. dé-col//age - 02'44''  
9. dé-col//age - 01'29'' 
10. dé-col//age - 05'36''  
11. dé-col//age - 03'46'' 
12. dé-col//age - 02'40'' 
13. dé-col//age - 03'09''  




Thea Farhadian – Violin
Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola
Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello
Klaus Kürvers – Double Bass
Nuno Torres – Alto Saxophone


Recorded in May 2016, Berlin
Cover design Carlos Santos



Reviews

dé-col/age [cs397] is an intriguing update on and reimagining of the reed quintet. A very indirect heir of the classical clarinet quintet, which augmented the standard string quartet with a reed instrument, the ensemble integrates an alto saxophone, played by Nuno Torres, with a nonstandard string quartet of violin (Thea Farhadian), viola (Rodrigues), cello (Rodrigues’ son Guilherme), and double bass (Klaus Kürvers). The makeup of the string quartet isn’t the only nonstandard thing about the music, which is presented in eleven fairly concise sections. Like much contemporary free improvisation, it exploits nonstandard instrumental technique as well as contrapuntal and ensemble playing based as much on timbre as on pitch relationships. To be sure, the music does include some passages of linear, if freely dissonant, counterpoint. But it is just as likely to mass the five voices into a multiband drone of wide compass, with harmonies and dissonances emerging and dissipating as the strings and saxophone rise and fall singly and together, or to scatter them into episodic clusters of abstract, unpitched sounds. At its best, Affiche brings a satisfying balance of conventional and extended technique and a fine employment of the full timbral ranges of strings and reed. Daniel Barbiero (Percorsi Musicali)

An unusual improvising string quartet plus alto saxophone, Thea Farhadian (violin), Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello), Klaus Kurvers (double bass) and Nuno Torres (alto saxophone) present the 11-part "De-col//age_", a slowly-developing work balancing unconventional approaches to their instruments with more conventional strategies. (Squidco)

sábado, 3 de dezembro de 2016

Leipzig



CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS390, Lisbon 2016








1. Leipzig I - 22'36''
2. Leipzig II - 19'33''
3. Leipzig III - 08'12''



Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone
Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello
Johannes von Buttlar - Percussion

Recorded in May 2016, Leipzig


Reviews

Named for the Leipzig, Poland location in which this live concert was recorded, the acoustic free improvising quartet of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Nuno Torres on alto saxophone, and Johannes von Buttlar on percussion, explore extended ranges and approaches to their instrument in these building and detailed dialogs. (Squidco)

segunda-feira, 21 de novembro de 2016

Théatron


CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS404, Lisbon 2016







1. Suspensão 9 - 57'55''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Yu Lin Hum - Cello
Hernâni Faustino - Double Bass
Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone
Eduardo Chagas - Trombone
Rodrigo Pinheiro - Piano
Emídio Buchinho - Electric Guitar
Flak - Acoustic Guitar
André Hencleeday - Tenor Psalterium
Carlos Santos - Synthesizer
Nuno Morão - Percussion

Recorded in April 2016, Lisbon


Reviews

Débutant par un drone grave, Suspensão est un bel exemple du développement du son collectif en suspension ou en sustain si on veut se référer au travail de John Stevens avec le Spontaneous Music Ensemble ou Orchestra. Confer la toute récente compilation du Spontaneous Music Orchestra, Search and Reflect (Emanem 5216), où figure le fameux enregistrement de Sustain du SME + = SMO le 25 janvier 1975. À l’intérieur du mouvement des sons suspendus interviennent subrepticement des interjections et des improvisations éclatées bien calibrées qui cadrent parfaitement avec les drones. Le pianiste frappe une note grave en pressant sur la corde ou joue des notes isolées, le tromboniste articule avec empressement une ventilation bruissante, le saxophoniste amortit ses coups de langue sur le bord de l’anche et fait trembler la colonne d’air. De la trame globale se dégage un crescendo minutieux où les mains se libèrent, les sons éclatent sourdement ou l’alto d’Ernesto Rodrigues se faufile prestement en sourdine, empilant les harmoniques. De manière progressive avec quand même quelques à-coup tranchants, les musiciens font transiter le flux dans des climats variés, le décor évolue. Vers la moitié du parcours, l’orage menace, la fébrilité gagne les participants, le jeu est tendu. Du moins, l’attaque des instruments, cordes, piano, percussions, guitare suggère une violence sourde, rentrée, comme si la foudre allait éclater. Mais, au sein de cette bourrasque invisible, deux ou trois ou quatre des musiciens ont maintenu le drone, ces sons en suspension qui conservent une hauteur précise un long moment et dont les timbres et la texture évoluent insensiblement. Puis vient une lueur, le ciel se dégage et l’auditeur sent poindre un sentiment d’apaisement. Les instrumentistes volatiles se déposent successivement sur la trame. La symbiose au sein de l’ensemble se fait jour dans le détail sonore et l’affect partagé tacitement transparaît au fil des secondes, qui s’évanouissent par centaines, créant un flux vers l’infini. Une performance collective de haut vol fédérant des musiciens d’horizon divers. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

In Gerald Murnane’s Barley Patch, he writes of a character who, listening to music in an old timber building, would hope to find “the crowd of dust-motes that he sometimes saw swirling or drifting in a shaft of sunlight.” As he listened to old records, “the movement of the specks” made him “think of energy held in check or of meaning waiting to be expressed. At any moment, the yellow motes might break out of the aimless-seeming formation and might arrange themselves far otherwise; might even comprise a set of signs requiring to be read.”

Théatron called this passage to mind, though instead of accompanying music, the swirling specks are the music itself: sound-motes held in suspension, loosely formed and in constant rearrangement, a set of transient signs hung delicately in the air. The 11-strong Suspensão ensemble deploys its numbers in the service of detail, rather than volume or density—an accumulation of details so fine, in fact, it’s hard to tell whether some are intentional or incidental. Each musician suspends a sound, holding it out into the space, and then another and another, sounds at times hanging in tandem, but all eventually dropping away to be replaced anew. It is music that feels too coherent to be improvised, but which you know could never have been composed.

The hourlong performance is the ninth “Suspensão” piece, continuing work developed on the 2011 double-album of the same name and 2015’s Jadis La Pluie Était Bleue. Dan Sorrells (The Free Jazz Collective)

“Théatron” e “Porto Covo” adaptam a fórmula para os elencos de 11 e oito elementos, respectivamente, que se apresentam como Suspensão. O mote está no nome, pois o foco vai para os tratamentos sustenidos ou suspensivos das notas. Ou melhor, para a produção de bordões (“drones”), ainda que sempre contrariados pela introdução no decorrer dos mesmos, regra geral de modo discreto, de pontilhismos – implicando que o grupo se constitua como a soma de dois. Um tem como função transportar-nos quase inconscientemente numa viagem, criando uma horizontalidade dirigida ao infinito, enquanto o outro nos desvia a audição activa para os detalhes, embora nunca determinando posições fixas para os músicos. Assim como a música muda sem que, à superfície, nada pareça acontecer, mudam também os papéis de quem a executa. Tensão e quietude conjugam-se de formas inusitadas, uma minando a outra. Deixamo-nos ir, mas nunca com uma sensação de conforto. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)