Fragments of the Unseen

  CD - Creative Sources Recordings - CS894, Lisbon 2026

1. I - 03'26''

2. II  - 01'41''

3. III - 01'38''

4. IV - 03'12''

5. V - 01'30''

6. VI - 02'53''

7. VII - 03'20''

8. VIII - 03'25''

9. IX - 01'56''

10. X - 03'53''

11. XI  - 02'19''

12. XII - 02'25''

13. XIII - 02'31''

14. XIV  - 01'25''

15. XV - 04'03''

16. XVI - 03'19''

17. XVII  - 03'35''

18. XVIII - 01'40''

19. XIX - 02'06''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Jung-Jae Kim - Tenor Saxophone

Andreas Willers - Acoustic Guitar

Recorded March 2026, Berlin

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/fragments-of-the-unseen

Reviews

Fragments of the Unseen suggests a completely different kind of free improvisation. It is the second album of the chamber, acoustic, free improvising quartet of violist Ernesto Rodrigues, cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, their frequent collaborator, Korean, Berlin-based tenor sax player Jung-Jae Kim, and German guitarist Andreas Willers, following the live recording of Points of Dichotomy (Creative Sources, 2025). But the studio recording of Fragments of the Unseen was captured seven months before Points of Dichotomy, and whereas the live recording featured two extended pieces, this studio one offers nineteen short fragments. Fragments of the Unseen focuses on concise and reductionist, patient, deep listening and carefully balanced improvisations, focusing on introspective, restrained textures, exploring tension, complementary string resonances, friction, and fragmentation, employing extended bowing and breathing techniques, and most of the time avoiding dramatic sonic collisions. Eyal Hareuveni (Salt Peanuts)

Fragments of the Unseen (recorded last month) then reprises the quartet formation from Points of Dichotomy (recorded in October 2025), as noted here in the review of quintet Crossing the Floor (in December). The latter was already a reprise featuring Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues with Jung-Jae Kim (tenor sax), while Points of Dichotomy — recorded the following day — replaced its drums & electronics with Andreas Willers (on acoustic guitar). For the nineteen short tracks of Fragments of the Unseen, Ernesto Rodrigues also eschews crackle box, making for an all-acoustic quartet — with Willers' work here on acoustic differing substantially from some other recent releases on electric guitar, e.g. his latest with Udo Schindler, Analytical Pre-Summer Retreat (recorded last May), where he continues to project a sustained, organ-esque sound world.... And then the Rodrigueses were most recently together here for quartet Untitled Dream (as noted in a review last month), there featuring electronics more than usual, but also suggesting a series of studies.... So Fragments of the Unseen continues Ernesto Rodrigues' extensive post-Cage explorations, immediately with a sense of quiet & acoustics, subtle ringing tones developing an ongoing sense of both space & interaction.... It also takes up the "ghostly" orientation of Crossing the Floor (pace Kim...), now almost more as a catalog of material (or series of studies...), often gestural, sometimes emerging as surprisingly assertive. Versus the relatively more blunt juxtapositions of Points of Dichotomy though, Fragments of the Unseen also enjoys a more subtle & sophisticated interaction overall, presumably deriving from the quartet's previous experience together. Is the result a single tapestry? It does come off well in a single sitting, but also suggests less the sense of filling spans of time (pace Cage) than of sculpting time per se (again per Kim & pace the prior review of Crossing...). And for this newest album, that sculpting is then more via series of gestures or vignettes, often fleeting themselves & so invoking senses of transition & transformation & emergence. Fragments of the Unseen is a relatively lengthy album, seemingly often merging with everyday sounds, but I've usually also been wishing it'd continue... maybe all day. (It's definitely more appealing than the usual clatter & now e.g. aircraft noise around my place.) Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

A Question Asked by the Empty Horizon

 CD - Creative Sources Recordings – CS888, Lisbon 2026

1. A Question Asked by the Empty Horizon - 30'04''

SUSPENSÃO

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola, Crackle Box

Inês Ferreira - Violin

Hernâni Faustino - Double Bass

Flak - Electric Guitar

André Hencleeday - Oscillator

João Silva - Trumpet

Tiago Varela - Melodica

Carlos Santos - Modular Synthesizer

Monsieur Trinité - Percussion

Recorded February 2026, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/a-question-asked-by-the-empty-horizon

Reviews

Ethereal Sighs

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS 886, Lisbon 2026

1. Ethereal Sights - 27'49''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola & Crackle Box

Maria Radich - Voice

Maria do Mar - Violin

Recorded November 2025, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/ethereal-sighs

Reviews

Earlier this year Ernesto Rodrigues released 'Pataphysique (with Guilherme Rodrigues & Carlos Zíngaro), as noted here last month, as well as a somewhat similar string trio with violinist Gerhard Uebele (Solitude, recorded back in 2022...). Both seem to set a "silence" orientation aside, i.e. as assertive albums with plenty of recorded presence, boisterous even in their activity levels (& sometimes also "classical" or Romantic, in their inspirations...). And a more aggressive orientation does seem to maintain for Rodrigues' most recent releases too, i.e. quartet Untitled Dream (recorded in December) as well as (perhaps paradoxically, pace the title...) trio Ethereal Sighs (recorded in November). The former seems more basically exploratory, often in assertive tones, including from electronics (& with frequent collaborators in general), focusing on reduced timbral combos & sometimes stark (perhaps even piercing...) textures across different tracks. It can seem almost like a restart, a new experiment. The latter involves a new ensemble though, yet not completely new, with Rodrigues (including on crackle box, its strange, especially high tones becoming increasingly prominent...) joined by vocalist Maria Radich & violinist Maria do Mar: I'd actually done a little survey for the review of L'âge de l'oreille (in May 2023), noting that despite producing many improvised vocal albums, Rodrigues had appeared with few vocalists himself to that point, but a vocalist noted there was already Radich (for the first time in this space), i.e. for appearing in some of his larger groups.... And then do Mar had been mentioned too, for being in the larger String Theory ensemble (& specifically Heptaphonies, reviewed July 2017), but also appeared with Rodrigues for a series of smaller ensemble albums (all from 2020, it seems). The situation presents a little less familiarity then, but not new relations, and of course L'âge de l'oreille presents a ready comparison (from the Rodrigues discography), substituting here violin for cello (& a different vocalist). Ethereal Sighs thus arrives in this space, in some sense, with a similar (relative) situation as Blonk, Smith & Zerang from last month, i.e. recalling a prominent previous vocal album (also from 2023), happening to present as well with a little less textural density, including via more open senses of overlapping calls. With cello, the earlier trio (with Ute Wassermann, also pairing strings) had presented a larger pitch gamut then, indeed suggesting senses of depth (& there's a sense of anticipation & gravity from the start...), whereas the overlapping ranges of Ethereal Sighs can dictate more a taking turns (e.g. with counterpoint more embedded within the viola part itself than moving across the trio...). And then there's a strong recorded presence as well, although not necessarily from voice, which tends to hide in the texture, perhaps via skittering whispers or other inarticulate offerings, but also e.g. into muffled screams — animating the short album (recorded live in Lisbon), beginning & ending with audible applause around what can become some rather taut interactive moments. The string duo thus dominates the texture at times (anticipating the voice...), with the violin often projecting senses of (quasi-Cageian...) extension in held tones, again coming to close interactions. (The crackle box comes to sound like e.g. rubbing a balloon? There're some very high pitch combos between the two at times.) Voice might thus become the lowest sounding instrument, with this sort of close-range alto-soprano trio suggesting e.g. Spleen from Rodrigues' recent output (also with Zíngaro, plus Carlos Bechegas on flutes, noted here November 2024...). The smaller overall range can suggest feelings of (spatial) specificity & intimacy, i.e. yields a sense of occasion & even secrecy. And then the title seems almost calculated to troll me personally, pace medieval reviews here, where these have been terms I've used pejoratively for many years! In that case, projecting one's own tentative appraisal & sense of distance back onto surviving music might be inevitable in some ways, but as a performance goal? The historical music was not inarticulate mush, of that we can be confident...! Yet such a weak approach was explicitly hailed by ("early music") critics, and with regularity.... Anyway, here we don't have historical music (or it's instantly historical...), and so interrogating notions of communication, humanity & presence becomes an active means of (contemporary, artistic...) engagement. (This sort of thing is sometimes done with thoughtful intent in medieval presentations too, but as a default it's been lazy, reflecting as well prejudice & laziness from even critical listeners.) The result becomes performative, including pace the frequently more assertive quality of Ethereal Sighs. Much consequently seems to happen over the course of its twenty-seven minutes — leaving a stronger impression upon repeated exposure. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Untitled Dream

CD - Creative Sources Recordings – CS887, Lisbon 2026

1. Foreign Gravity - 04'13''

2. Sot Machinery - 05'56''

3. Liquid Memory - 04'45''

4. Invisible Bones - 03'15''

5. Sleeping Geometry - 04'27''

6. Hollow Time - 05'00''

7. Electric Dust - 03'30''

8. Fragile Forms - 05'24''

9. Liquid Silence - 03'28''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola, Crackle Box

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Carlos Santos - Electronics, Objects

Monsieur Trinité - Percussion

Recorded December 2025, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/untitled-dream

Reviews