Piano

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS461, Lisbon 2017

1. Piano - 31'10''

Carlos Santos - Piano

Ernesto Rodrigues - Piano

Recorded January 2015, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/piano

Reviews

A unique take on the piano, with both participants--Ernesto Rodrigues and Carlos Santos--approaching the physical aspects of the instrument, somewhat beyond prepared piano, as the two record not just the strings but the wood, metal and most likely wheels of the instrument, creating a cantankerous display of sound that unfolds slowly; idiosyncratic and noteworthy. (Squidco)

χωρισμός

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS458, Lisbon 2017

1. Chorismos - 47'12''

David Area - Electronics

Tomás Gris - Guitar & Objects

Ernesto Rodrigues - Harp & Objects

Recorded 2017, Madrid & Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/chorismos

Reviews

I'll spare the title's philosophical implications for another occasion, and get straight to the point. Creative Sources was among the first imprints to present works by artists honestly willing to travel the no man's land separating sound from silence. For this, Ernesto Rodrigues' label is respected by this reviewer in spite of the latter's repudiation of similarly oriented music in recent years. I have spoken at length on the insincerity of certain assumed milestones — in reality, forgettable albums — by composers and/or improvisers who fabricated a trend for exploitable audiences (and, not infrequently, built rewarding careers on absolutely nothing). As of today, it is hard to find useful words for a release moving around those coordinates. But here we are.

Chorismos comprises a single track lasting about 47 minutes. The instrumentation — electronics, guitar, harp and objects — may have been completely different and, most probably, the outcome's aural philosophy would not have changed. This is in fact a classic example of recording whose pace and dynamics appear to be dictated more by environmental resonances and surrounding activities than a player's transitory intention. In the initial part of the piece, protracted stretches of quietness act as a container for remote city echoes before a sparse counterpoint is formed. It's a rather expectable representation of the genre: plucked string clusters, infinitesimal crackling, gentle touches, irregular electronic noises. As the time elapses, the background activity retains its influence — motors and sirens calling for our attention — while Area, Gris and Rodrigues attempt to increase both their acoustic presence and the sheer number of gestures to distil substance from the interplay. This change originates brief sections in which one can better measure the instrumental nuances against the impalpable reverberations from the outside. However, no real surprises materialize; the record ends like that, a fragment of fragility in the endlessness of normality.


Ultimately, a doubt lingers on: perhaps the trio purportedly chose this kind of action to emphasize the concept of separation implied by the album's denomination. Did they just consider themselves an interface between diverse mechanisms in a sort of "cosmically metropolitan" snapshot? After repeated listens, I'm still none the wiser. Lowercase savants are not going to be denied, though; everything herein will give them pleasure. Massimo Ricci (The Squid's Ear)

An album of patience and concentrated listening from the lowercase trio of David Area on electronics, Tomas Gris on guitar and objects, and Ernesto Rodrigues on harp and objects, each player subtly coaxing sounds out of their instruments while the electronics act as environmental ambience over which tones slowly voice, recede and occasionally punctuate. (Squidco)

Liames

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS457, Lisbon 2017

1. I - 07'00''
2. II - 03'57''
3. III - 11'41'' 
4. IV - 22'40''

LISBON STRING TRIO & KAROLINE LEBLANC

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Miguel Mira - Cello

Alvaro Rosso - Contrabass

Karoline Leblanc - Piano

Recorded May 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

Collage by Dilar Pereira

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/liames

Reviews

After adding the trombone on Intonarumori — with its register colliding with those of the strings — the Lisbon String Trio make an even greater departure by playing with Karoline Leblanc (b.1975, Québec) on piano on Liames (also recorded in May) — the one title in the series that means nothing to me. It's not the title that's a departure, of course, but the resources of the piano, both its fixed tuning & vast mechanics that can almost encompass a string trio, both in range & timbre. Playing inside the piano addresses some of the tuning flexibility issue (although it doesn't necessarily motivate using a piano in the first place) — and indeed let me note Ernesto Rodrigues's recent (although recorded in early 2015) duo album with Carlos Santos, called simply Piano, where they play a different style of "piano four hands" with Rodrigues inside & Santos outside — but there is still a question of balance between the instruments. Liames opens with two brief, more exploratory tracks, and slowly builds from there, becoming more pianistic as it goes. (The third track is longer than the first two combined, and the fourth & last is over half the album.) Leblanc, with whom I was not previously familiar, has apparently studied extensively with harpsichordists, and there is perhaps some of that (clanking) feel to some of her preparations, but the album itself takes on more of a romantic quality. (In fact, it highlights the romantic influences in the string harmonies at various points in this series, including on K'Ampokol Che K'Aay.) One might think of the classical piano quartet, which would involve substituting a violin for the bass here, and Liames certainly evokes that genre. (I can't really think of a comparable "free music" example, other than the string plus percussion albums that have been mentioned here so often already. And using bass, leaving the highest ranges to the piano, works just fine.) Environmental references once again fall more to the wayside, as the strings work to fill the piano's "interstices" with a variety of counterpoint (as opposed to simply reinforcing lines, as in the classical style). In this it differs from the more thoroughly classical articulation of Earnear (which also includes Mira) by being more impressionistic & rather less technical (although there is some matching of rubbed string contours & timbres between piano & other strings). Pizzicato is especially prominent at times, for instance opening the second track (which is perhaps the most like other moments in the series, and a highlight), and the strings go on to develop an almost 20th century Russian feel (even with something of a chase scene or two). By the end of this series, then, the whole production starts to sound normal: I mean, I start to get the impression that this isn't particularly novel music at all, although I still imagine that'd be anyone's first impression. There's more tonality, especially with the piano, but more in general than is initially apparent. Liames even starts to suggest a bit of lightness, as did Télépathie. There's probably more to be done with this piano quartet idea, particularly inside the piano, so we'll see (hear) what happens.... 12 August 2017. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

One of five live collaborations with The Lisbon String Trio of violist Ernesto Rodrigues, cellist Miguel Mira, and bassist Alvaro Rosso, Quebec pianist Karoline Leblanc accompanying on the piano as the 4th string in this open-minded equation of slowly intersecting improvisation creating an unusual tapestry of sound that ebbs and flows in exceptional ways. (Squidco)

[...] Ainsi sa rencontre avec la pianiste québécoise Karoline Leblanc dans Liames, qui définit l’intensité tout en conservant de la distance. En accompagnant le piano dans son rôle de quatrième instrument à cordes, travaillé à même ses entrailles, le trio convie Leblanc à étendre son jeu tout en s’intégrant parfaitement dans le dédale d’archets que bornent Mira et Rosso. [...] Franpi Barriaux (citizen jazz)

Intonarumori

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS456, Lisbon 2017

1. I - 05'00''
2. II - 06'51''
3. III - 10'14'' 
4. IV - 09'39''
5. V - 08'24'' 
6. VI - 06'11'' 

LISBON STRING TRIO & CARLO MASCOLO

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Miguel Mira - Cello

Alvaro Rosso - Contrabass

Carlo Mascolo - Trombone

Recorded May 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

Collage by Dilar Pereira

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/intonarumori

Reviews

[…] Il primo si rapporta a quanto sta facendo Ernesto Rodrigues in Portogallo: è da tempo che il violista sperimenta anche con trio o quartetto di corde, ingenerando sonorità spezzate e contemporanee, nell'ambito delle proposte della sua etichetta Creative Sources. Un recente ciclo di improvvisazioni è stato imbastito con Miguel Mira al violoncello e Alvaro Rosso al contrabbasso nella denominazione di Lisbon String Trio. Nell'ottica di un approfondimento relazionale con altro tipo di strumentazione aggiuntiva, il trio ha chiamato alla partecipazione altri valenti improvvisatori, dedicandosi per ognuno alla scoperta di nuovi anfratti dell'immaginazione sonora, e tra questi si segnala la collaborazione intervenuta con il trombone preparato di Carlo Mascolo in un cd dal titolo Intonarumori. Mascolo si inserisce nella più proverbiale interpretazione del Russolo, con gli strumenti che grattano, strappano o scivolano sulle cordiere: il suo trombone si gonfia e sospira nella traccia II, lasciando intatto il senso del dialogo immaginario e dell'appeal industriale; in un'ambiente sonico impossibile, i rumori si affiancano e si compongono agli impasti e una grande scoperta sonora può essere persino il battito dell'archetto, un espediente creato a hoc per fornire una torbida trama immaginativa, dove il compito di Mascolo è quello di dare contributo a questo scenario di rumori da codificare in una memoria suppletiva; un trombone soffocato e quasi dolente aleggia in posizione aerea (senti la traccia IV), senza mai viaggiare nei territori timbrici convenzionali del trombone a cui ci siamo abituati (traccia VI). Percorsi Musicali (Ettore Garzia)

As introduced in an extended entry a couple of weeks ago, on Intonarumori (recorded in Lisbon in May, nine days after Akuanduba), the Lisbon String Trio is joined by Carlo Mascolo on trombone. As also noted, Mascolo has a recent solo album on Creative Sources, My Tubes, featuring a growling trombone & preparations, including splitting the instrument into its different components. Intonarumori likewise suggests more of a technical, exploratory orientation than other albums in the series, as well as marks a change in register for the wind joining the trio: Although harmonics ramify the sense of pitch hierarchy, the previous three albums feature winds that are (most commonly) in the soprano range, so recalling that the string trio has the alto (viola) as its highest-pitched instrument, here the trombone occupies the middle of the texture. The result involves less sense of space, due to more crossing of lines (as typical of so many other, recent Rodrigues string-majority albums), and consequently some closer interactions absent the same sort of layering. It begins in percussive mode for the strings, lending a kind of forcefulness to what are otherwise some fairly understated sounds moving into harmonics. The opening track is rather contrapuntal (as is the fifth), and one of the more appealing in the series. The second track opens with what might be described as an extended "raspberry" from the trombone that almost seems percussive itself, yielding to mimicking string accents. The next track emphasizes more harmonics, at least in part to occupy the higher pitches, while the trombone growls below. The interactions are tantalizing, but the latter part of the albums seems to struggle a bit to recapture some of the opening energy, and especially to forge a contrapuntal style, as a sort of wheezing grooving chordal structure sometimes emerges while emphasizing particular pitches (& their displacement). Basically, the polyphonic implications are rather different for this ensemble, and the single (I guess?) performance date yields an album with a more exploratory feel than the previous releases. It does retain a sense of force (at least until it simply ends, not quite with a whimper), however, which is difficult to describe, as the trombone often lurks "behind" the strings, and "changes" can arise anywhere. There are also fewer environmental sounds invoked by this performance than previously in the series. The trombone itself allows for pitch glissandi much like the strings, which is part of what brings a heightened sense of overlapping resources, and indeed trombone was an instrument that particularly interested me in the early days of this project — since I knew that jazz meant horns. (Matched glissando contours are one of the more intriguing technical aspects here.) Strangely, I don't currently have any trombone leader albums listed on my favorites list, so that's a question to ponder. (Probably the most prominent trombone there now is Steve Swell on Sediment, although both Sebi Tramontana on Sudo Quartet Live at Banlieue Bleue & Johannes Bauer on Grid Mesh Live in Madrid have important roles in those mixed quartets. There is also Henry Threadgill's use of trombone — together with tuba.) The subtle shifts & multiphonics of the trombone tend to stay in the background? Perhaps. I'll need to pay more attention to trombone albums, and Intonarumori has provoked that. As I hope this delay in the discussion suggests, it warrants close attention, and perhaps a similar ensemble will be attempted. (I'd be inclined to try replacing one of the lower strings with a violin or a second viola.) As I write, there is still "only" one more album in this series, and I'll be discussing it soon (perhaps next). I'll also be listening more for trombones (again). Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

One of six Lisbon String Trio albums, each joining the core trio of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Alvaro Rosso on double bass, and Miguel Mira on cello with a 4th improviser, here with trombonist Carlo Mascolo, performing live at Mira's Palace in Lisbon, Portugal for one of the most harmonically unique albums of the set as the trombone weaves in and out of the strings. (Squidco)

[...] On trouvera semblable relation avec l’incroyable tromboniste italien Carlo Mascolo dans Intonarumori. Ce n’est pas l’urgence qui est ici convoquée mais une sorte de tension, proche du mouvement permanent, où le trombone préparé prolonge à la fois les rebonds de l’archet et la glisse du crin sur les cordes. Le souffle, totalement aspiré par la dynamique du trio augmenté, se transmute en un brouillard étrange où le moindre événement se comporte comme une entaille, un cahot dans une dynamique collective très dense et bruitiste où le silence est comme la surface d’un plan d’eau, qui se ride et se trouble à la moindre poussière. [...] Franpi Barriaux (citizen jazz)

The final of the series is another quartet recording this time by the Lisbon String Trio augmented by Carlo Mascolo on trombone. This one was recorded live at Mira's Palace in May 2017, and is for me the best of the bunch: the conversations between the trombone and the LST are not from this galaxy, and so is the overall atmosphere of the concert. Maciej Lewenstein