CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS194, Lisbon 2011
1. Le chant de la pluie – 09’06’’
2. Singulier grain de sable – 06’19’’
3. L'arbre qui ne cache – 09’28’’
5. L'échec des machines formidables – 05’33’’
6. Un beau matin, la déchirure – 10’07’’
Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola
Abdul Moimême – 2 Prepared Electric Guitars
Heddy Boubaker - Alto & Bass Saxophones
Recorded in October 2010, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos
Reviews
Enregistré en 2010 pour le label portugais Creative Sources, Le Beau Déviant est le fruit d'un trio franco-ibérique: les portugais Ernesto Rodrigues au violon alto et Abdul Moimême aux guitares, accompagnés d'Heddy Boubaker aux saxophones. Répartie en six pièces, cette heure d'improvisation est assurément abstraite et minimaliste, comme on peut l'attendre d'un album paru sur le label de Rodrigues.
Car venant de ce dernier, on ne s'étonnera pas que ces six improvisations soient principalement basées sur l'agencement des textures et l'exploration de techniques étendues. L'archet racle plus qu'il ne frotte, les guitares sont souvent méconnaissables, et les saxophones sont autant joués à partir du souffle seul ou du plateau que sur les notes. Six improvisations abstraites, réductionnistes et minimalistes, où rythmes et mélodies brillent par leur absence. Bien sûr, la musique est ici fondamentalement concentrée sur l'exploration sonore du timbre, elle est produite en partie par l'interaction des différentes textures: des paysages poreux et vastes, mouvants et beaux, nés de l'imbrication et de la superposition de trois strates, de trois processus d'individuation. Le Beau Déviant pose des textures architecturales riches où les couches peuvent se confondre magiquement et être donc homogènes, quand elles ne sont pas distinctes et hétérogènes dans leur superposition. Le trio franco-portugais exploite de nombreuses possibilités et potentialités qui forment à chaque fois une dynamique différente: un son compact ou hétéroclite comme je le disais à l'instant, ou encore une exploration alternée de techniques étendues ou traditionnelles qui se confrontent, etc. Chaque membre s'en tient néanmoins à une idée souvent unique et toujours précise qu'il déploie longuement à l'intérieur d'une dynamique collective où toutes les idées se rejoignent, se soutiennent, et s'enrichissent.
Ces six improvisations sont merveilleusement concentrées sur des formes d'agencement très fécondes et aussi riches que les timbres utilisés, déployés et explorés. Les paysages sonores et les dynamiques varient à l'intérieur d'une amplitude très large, ce qui contribue à former un espace sonore vraiment profond et vaste, d'une richesse vertigineuse. Un exercice d'architecture réductionniste original, assumé, travaillé, et riche, un exercice réussi en somme. hjulien (Improv Sphere)
Car venant de ce dernier, on ne s'étonnera pas que ces six improvisations soient principalement basées sur l'agencement des textures et l'exploration de techniques étendues. L'archet racle plus qu'il ne frotte, les guitares sont souvent méconnaissables, et les saxophones sont autant joués à partir du souffle seul ou du plateau que sur les notes. Six improvisations abstraites, réductionnistes et minimalistes, où rythmes et mélodies brillent par leur absence. Bien sûr, la musique est ici fondamentalement concentrée sur l'exploration sonore du timbre, elle est produite en partie par l'interaction des différentes textures: des paysages poreux et vastes, mouvants et beaux, nés de l'imbrication et de la superposition de trois strates, de trois processus d'individuation. Le Beau Déviant pose des textures architecturales riches où les couches peuvent se confondre magiquement et être donc homogènes, quand elles ne sont pas distinctes et hétérogènes dans leur superposition. Le trio franco-portugais exploite de nombreuses possibilités et potentialités qui forment à chaque fois une dynamique différente: un son compact ou hétéroclite comme je le disais à l'instant, ou encore une exploration alternée de techniques étendues ou traditionnelles qui se confrontent, etc. Chaque membre s'en tient néanmoins à une idée souvent unique et toujours précise qu'il déploie longuement à l'intérieur d'une dynamique collective où toutes les idées se rejoignent, se soutiennent, et s'enrichissent.
Ces six improvisations sont merveilleusement concentrées sur des formes d'agencement très fécondes et aussi riches que les timbres utilisés, déployés et explorés. Les paysages sonores et les dynamiques varient à l'intérieur d'une amplitude très large, ce qui contribue à former un espace sonore vraiment profond et vaste, d'une richesse vertigineuse. Un exercice d'architecture réductionniste original, assumé, travaillé, et riche, un exercice réussi en somme. hjulien (Improv Sphere)
Here’s one that might amuse some of you. The two new Michael Pisaro albums on Gravity Wave arrived here yesterday, and, this morning I planned to try and listen to one of them on my way to work in the car. This isn’t a great way to listen of course, but I was eager to hear how they sounded, so I took the disc out of its sleeve so as to make it easier to just slide into the car CD player, went and put-on my work clothes and then headed out to the car. I slid the disc into the player a I pulled away, and was really surprised within minutes at how different the disc sounded for Pisaro, and found myself amazed that Greg Stuart had managed to make his percussion sound so much like a saxophone. For about two more minutes as I drove I continually remarked to myself what a huge sidestep this was for Pisaro, and it was just while I was trying to work out how much I liked his new direction that it dawned on me that I had picked up the wrong disc and was playing something else entirely.
The CD I had been playing, was in fact a trio recording by current TWE regulars Heddy Boubaker, (alto and bass sax) Ernesto Rodrigues (viola) and Abdul Moimeme (prepared electric guitars). Released on Creative Sources (disc 194!) the album is titled Le Beau Déviant. I listened again on my way home from work, and then again a couple of times properly this evening on a decent stereo through which I could never have mistaken it for Michael Pisaro…
Le Beau Déviant (deviating beauty?) is indeed a quite good title for this release. Its a set of six straight-up improvisations of three instruments played non-melodically, non-conventially and yet sounding much like we might expect, a mix of squealing, slithering reeds, rasping and groaning strings and the less predictable hum and crack of electric guitar. Moimeme’s contributions here, perhaps unsurprisingly form the main branching-out point for this music, as his sounds barely resemble a guitar, instead having the feel of an intimate form of industrial or mechanical processes, all thuds and fizzes and various other points in between. Its all a quite aggressive affair, not really loud or dynamically confrontational, but somehow the music feels like a tussle over important issues, a hot headed debate rather than anything soft and beautiful. Things rasp and wail and bubble around one another, not too fast and not without a sense of space, but this equally isn’t a subdued affair.
I’m not sure as to how much the musicians had played together at the time of this recording in October last year, but there does seem to be a nice balance here, perhaps formed in part from the mix of instrumentation which brings a little of everything to the equation. While there is a confidence to the playing though, and no sign of any “feeling out” of the musical scenario it does’t all just build to some kind of climax. The trio tussle and tubule around each other at an even pace and with considerable thought throughout.
I can’t make any great claims of this disc to be any more than it is- a CD of a well chosen improvising trio producing a disc that is a pleasure to wallow in, thoroughly engaging to sink your ears into. As I spend more and more time with his music, I find myself enjoying Ernesto Rodrigues’ work more and more though. Its not that anything he appears on attempts to rewrite the rules, and it often sounds how you imagine it might, but my enjoyment of his music, and also of Le Beau Déviant comes out of this factor. We can put innovation to one side here, and just spend some time listening to musicians lock horns and find a way to make music together. The end result is a pleasing, well recorded set of six works, but the journey we follow as listeners here, perhaps trying to break apart the music in our heads to figure out which sound comes from where, perhaps doing the opposite and trying to meld it all together is what makes listening to this release so worthwhile. One of these days I will try and narrow down the albums of Ernesto Rodrigues to four or five I can really recommend, but when I do I suspect that several from this recent rich vein of form will be on the list. None of them though, sound like Michael Pisaro. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)
Experiencing this disc is like sitting in your back yard and listening to the environmental sounds. A breeze lifts here, a bird chirps there, a lawnmower starts up, a car whizzes past, someone is raking leaves, a bee buzzes by, someone is hammering nails on a deck, a dog barks.
But such a description only begins to tell the story of the aural sculptures of Le Beau Déviant, six tracks that form a cohesive, coherent sequence of moments in time. One thing is for sure: with limited means (saxophone, viola and prepared electric guitars) the trio manages to conjure a plethora of sonic textures and shapes and tell stories that make one lean in and listen.
Heddy Boubaker's fragments of reedy saxophone sputters (alto and bass) blend imperceptibly with Ernesto Rodrigues' minimalistic viola lines and the spare shreds of Abdul Moimême's electric guitar. Weaving mostly textural composition of the electro-acoustic variety, this trio confabulation is a seamless unity, albeit made up of six tracks with poetic French titles like "le chant de la pluie" ("the song of the rain"), "L'echec des machines formidables" ("The failure of the formidable machines") and "un beau matin, la déchirure" ("One beautiful morning, the break-up").
An impressive coherence evolves from track to track and the whole disc feels like one long meditation on time passing, how sound is evidence of that, and how sounds help make up the stories that we return to for meaning or simple solace. This disc has plenty of both.
With judicious use of silences and hyper-sensitive attention to the innate qualities of the slightest sound, the three musicians have thrown together a highly interesting detour for curious ears. Paul Serralheiro (The Squid's Ear)
La pochette est sobre et les noms des morceaux (Le chant de la pluie, Singulier grain de sable, Tempête éteinte des passions…) sont des indices donnés par Heddy Boubaker (saxophones), Ernesto Rodrigues (violon) et Abdul Moimême (guitare électrique préparée) pour aborder leurs improvisations. L’écoute de leur disque confirme que ces indices étaient fiables.
Car leur « déviant » est « beau » ET attentionné. Les instruments sifflent & soufflent & chuintent, l‘improvisation balance deux notes de violon, ronronne près de l’oreille de l’auditeur ou se meut au loin. Ce qui était promis est donc tenu : la conversation dévie souvent. et est d'une très belle harmonie. Pierre Cécile (Le Son du Grisli)
Earlier this year, I noticed the Creative Sources label for the first time, via the new release listings at Squidco. This label has a distribution association with Clean Feed, was started at the same time, and is almost as prolific. However, Creative Sources is directed by Portuguese violist Ernesto Rodrigues (b.1959), and a large portion of the catalog includes his playing. Rodrigues' work exemplifies some of the discussion above, in that it's a free-form and often slowly moving exploration of texture between sometimes unusual instrument combinations. There is a sense of sonic tapestry perhaps, but definitely a close sense of timbral relationships between sounds and very detailed listening experiences both between the musicians and for the audience. Rodrigues is involved in so many recordings, it's difficult to know where to start, but I've been listening to a couple from 2011, particularly Le Beau Déviant featuring Heddy Boubaker on saxophone and Abdul Moimême on prepared electric guitar. Although this sounds little like traditional Western music, one obvious thing to note is the technical prowess of these performers. They seem to be carefully under control in even the most extreme sonic production from their instruments. The web suggests that something happened with Boubaker, and he is no longer able to play saxophone, but here his breath control is phenomenal. Moimême with the prepared electric guitar acts as percussion or even gongs at times, not an electric screech (leave that to the other two), and exemplifies the attention to detail in this style. All tracks are less evocative of human music (so to speak) than they are scenes from nature, perhaps finding the apotheosis of a French trend beginning in the late 1800s, and originally derived from Orientalist tendencies. This somehow becomes music about the natural environment, seeming distinct from humanity, as opposed to some of the other items I've discussed recently which incorporate the mechanical sounds of civilization into a soundscape. In any case, although I have found Le Beau Déviant rather interesting, and do enjoy the first track with its piercing saxophone, I've ultimately found the recording more interesting than compelling. Mainly, I guess, it doesn't fit my emphasis on human interaction in music, although obviously such is occurring. This is at least as true for the most recent recording including Rodrigues (as well as Moimême), Brume (still dated 2011), featuring a laptop-objects-drum duo called Diatribes. Although the tracks are not titled, this improvisatory sextet is said to evoke the mysterious sounds of a dark forest at night. While generally quiet and subtly mixed, it's a wide open canvas of pretty much any sound that can be made, including static and feedback. 3 April 2012. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts
Deviant beauty from the trio of Heddy Boubaker (sax), Ernesto Rodrigues (viola) and Abdul Moimeme (prepared electric guitar), dark and sinister improv using extended techniques and a quietly turbulent approach. (Squidco)
