CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS501, Lisbon 2018
1. Sîn - 51'42''
Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Axel Dörner - Trumpet
Nuno Torres - Alto saxophone
Alexander Frangenheim - Double Bass
Recorded May 2016, Berlin
Ag is certainly a short, enigmatic title, and so is Sîn: The circumflex is curious, but might be an evocation of the almost obsessive attention to detail that dominates the musical interaction itself. The history of Sîn is, at least in some sense, more straightforward: The same quartet of viola, alto sax, trumpet & double bass had already appeared on Nor (recorded in May 2014, and featured here in April 2015). And Ernesto Rodrigues had already turned to different — & less frequent — collaborators on the same instruments for New Dynamics, which does indeed feature a different dynamic around the two-horn & two-string acoustic quartet. (I continue to appreciate New Dynamics quite a bit, but that "sprinkler" cover graphic is among my least favorite on the label.) Whereas Nor was a studio album recorded in one day in Berlin, and New Dynamics was recorded live in Lisbon, Sîn was recorded over two days in a studio (again in Berlin). There are no track breaks, so it's unclear what might have happened on different days, but there are also various pauses in the music that might have been marked by track breaks on other productions. Sîn also differs in that it was recorded by Frangenheim & mixed by Rodrigues — which is typical enough — but then mastered by André Hencleeday (who has participated in various other Rodrigues projects). Perhaps such a rethinking of the audio itself, if indeed it did involve rethinking, accounts for the relative delay in the release as well: Whereas many recordings appear a year or two after they were made, that's less often the case with Rodrigues, who often releases albums only a few months after a recording session, and in fact for context, I was discussing New Dynamics in this space three days after Sîn was recorded. (And for more context, although Nor is a recent album in many ways, there have been over two hundred Creative Sources releases in the interim.) Anyway, the result is such that whereas Nor can be maddeningly quiet, and (much like the first thirty seconds or so of K'Ampokol Che K'Aay) Sîn presents that way for a moment too, it ultimately has a lot more presence: In fact, at one point, it's so loud that it becomes frightening. There is quite a dynamic range, but one can hear everything clearly with attention — which is much more satisfying for me. Where things start to seem a little strange again, however, is that — in spite of passages that can become overwhelming — Sîn is also easy to ignore as background music. Full stop. So how is this situation possible? Perhaps another consequence of the relative lateness of this release is that, much to my surprise, it was already in "cddb" when I went to put a copy on my portable computer (since I move around the area, by public transit, on a regular basis): This was an unusual situation, as very few of these albums are to be found in that database, at least not as soon as I usually audition them. There is another aspect to this, though, and that's that the genre was listed as "ambient." .... As long as I'm discussing computers anyway, then, I have to be specific about my fraught relation to ambient music: I cannot think about it without thinking of the Microsoft system sounds (which were composed by Brian Eno, for anyone who might not know) — and the Microsoft sounds make me angry, because interacting with Microsoft & its noxious products has made me very angry over the years. (I was involved with the DIY culture around computers since before Microsoft, then in the guise of "DOS," and via their contract with IBM, took over the consumer & small business market. I generally prefer BSD myself, although I'm typing this on a very spartan Ubuntu portable. Anyway....) So this history is truly a barrier for me in terms of thinking worthwhile thoughts on the topic, since my reaction is quite visceral. (The startup sound for Microsoft Windows feels like a punch in the face.) That said, I have more or less just described the fundamental goal of ambient music, i.e. to occupy as much of one's attention as one wants to provide, and to be easy to ignore otherwise. So that label does appear to be apt, at least partially. However, Eno has also strongly associated ambient music with computers & studio post-production. And whereas I do insist that one consider the act of recording, mixing etc. already to yield an electroacoustic result, and I have no idea what might have occurred over the two days of recording Sîn, let alone subsequent mixing etc., this is still an acoustic album — in the conventional sense that it records traditional acoustic instruments: The techniques aren't even terribly extended. (One can also listen to the Portuguese half of this quartet explore some similar ideas in the company of two other players on electronics on Skiagraphía, an album recorded a month later in Moscow.) And whereas Sîn wasn't recorded live, such a situation is not unusual for these same performers when creating similar music. So one thus has a basically acoustic, improvised music that "functions" at a variety of attention levels, and moreover, can do so potently. What of the instrumentation then? As did these preceding quartets from Rodrigues, one might even note that Sîn employs three quarters of a classic "free jazz" quartet — with viola replacing drums. The result is a double pairing of horns & strings, although to the extent that the quartet breaks into pairs (i.e. not much), it's more the Lisbon pair & the Berlin pair. And there is consequently more of an orchestral, or a particular (differently immanent) version of orchestral, feel to the proceedings. In fact, Sîn is quite a journey: Despite being under an hour, it feels like a very long album, and I mean that in the best sense: After one already feels as though so much has happened that it's hard to remember the beginning, there is still much more to come. The same phenomenon exists at partial attention as well, with various episodes perhaps standing out across what sometimes seem like lengthy intervals. (It can be very productive background music in that sense.) There are what I might call chordal streams involved in the various — sometimes seemingly independent — gestures that both fill & are spaced through/by the exposition. There are likewise subtle evocations of various world scenes amid what is often a strong contrapuntal orientation (which would also describe K'Ampokol Che K'Aay, as would feelings of lengthiness, coming from what is otherwise a rather different album). That such counterpoint can move seamlessly at different speeds (temporalities), yet engulfed by the sense of "streaming" providing modulation of harmonic content per se, further demonstrates the depth & talent these musicians bring to such densely motivic improvisation (even, or especially, as density per se can sometimes ease). The effect suggests the experience of a contrapuntal "machine" from different angles, including from inside, from outside, and from different times & time scales. As the austere title might already suggest, Sîn comes off quite seriously, and so not with the tacit frivolity of e.g. a bagatelle (per an entry last week), but in a wide ranging & potent realignment of affect — or rather, such potential realignment is what attention can or will drive. (One might even label the outcome theological, including in its interrogation of unity & difference.) So Sîn makes a strong start to 2018 releases, already forcing me to relate differently. 26 February 2018. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts
An extended studio improvisation recorded in Berlin-Weissensee, Germany in 2016 from the restrained quartet of Axel Dorner on trumpet, Nuno Torres on alto sax, Alexander Frangenheim on double bass, and Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, using advanced techniques in a monumental journey that finds the quartet in a variety of expansive and intriguing dialogs. Dorner is an infrequent yet regular collaborator with the Creative Sources core, and his familiarity with their playing and his compatibility with the kind of improvisation Rodrigues and company work in--subtle, understated, capable of swells but resolving to silence--ensures a fascinating conversation. Each player draws on vast skills, using unique approaches to their instruments, bringing out a sense of enthusiasm less usual with similar configurations; the music is quite energetic at times, never predictable, and forceful even in its quiet passages. (Squidco)
Acompanhar a par e passo a actividade discográfica de Ernesto Rodrigues é um empreendimento destinado ao fracasso, tal a quantidade de títulos em que o violetista está envolvido – arriscamos mesmo em dizer que será ele, porventura, o improvisador que, no mundo, tem mais álbuns lançados. Regra geral na editora que dirige, a Creative Sources, que conta presentemente com tantos, ou mais (já muito para lá dos 500), lançamentos do que a igualmente portuguesa Clean Feed – ainda que não haja eco desse facto na comunicação social, sobretudo a nossa, tão afoita a ignorar o que se passa em casa, sobretudo quando as criações artísticas não são propriamente “hipster” (ou seja, não têm a mesma representatividade, nos nichos estéticos, que a cultura “mainstream”). Alguns desses títulos destacam-se dos demais, e este “Sîn” é um desses casos, documentando as longas estadias que o português faz em Berlim, tocando com músicos da cena local. Com ele, e com o saxofonista alto Nuno Torres, estão os alemães Axel Dörner (trompete) e Alexander Frangenheim (contrabaixo), duas das mais importantes figuras da improvisação europeia, o primeiro também com um longo historial de realizações no domínio mais específico do jazz.
“Sîn” é um disco de música abstracta (no sentido em que privilegia os factores tímbricos e texturais sobre todos os outros) improvisada, com mais afinidades com certas correntes da música erudita contemporânea do que com o jazz, mas não seria o que é se o dito jazz não fizesse parte do ADN dos quatro instrumentistas envolvidos. Não é, porém, essa característica, e nem sequer o facto de todos eles utilizarem técnicas extensivas para a obtenção do tipo de sons que ouvimos, o que verdadeiramente está em causa: o que nos chama a atenção é o modo como as improvisações colectivas são encenadas e dramatizadas, como se se tratasse de teatro musical. O que prevalece é o gesto, o acto, o “statement” até, cada manifestação sonora, incluindo a mais subtil, ganhando um enlevo grandiloquente e tão definitivo e afirmativo quanto são efémeras, passageiras e voláteis as construções que se vão formando. Apenas músicos que dominam plenamente os seus instrumentos e a metodologia da improvisação são capazes de algo assim, desmentindo o preconceito de quem afirma que só escolhem estas práticas aqueles que «não sabem tocar» – o que se passa é, na verdade, precisamente o contrário. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)
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