Solitude

CD - Creative Sources Recordings – CS884, Lisbon 2026

1. I - 04'50''

2. II - 02'51''

3. III - 02'42''

4. IV - 07'15''

5. V - 02'13''

6. VI - 03'24''

7. VII - 01'10''

8. VIII - 03'20''

9. IX - 02'05''

10. X - 01'57''

11. XI - 01'59''

12. XII - 00'45''

Gerhard Uebele - Violin, Voice

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola, Voice

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello, Voice

Recorded October 2024, Berlin

Cover design Inês Ferreira

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

Reviews

Something ancient listens within us. The light has forgotten its name but will remain.

 CD - Creative Sources Recordings – CS882, Lisbon 2026

1. The Age of Inner Turmoil. Fragments of Being. - 36'40''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola 

Hernâni Faustino - Double Bass

Flak - Electric Guitar

André Hencleeday - Piano

Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone

Tiago Varela - Melodica

Carlos Santos - Electronics

Monsieur Trinité - Percussion

Recorded December 2025, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/something-ancient-listens-within-us-the-light-has-forgotten-its-name-but-will-remain

Reviews

Then to close the year here — a difficult year for many creative musicians, I think it's fair to observe... — I want to take up another new album from Ernesto Rodrigues: The latest (with changes in personnel over the years) from an ensemble that first recorded Suspensão in 2010 (as it happens, a few months before I began this project...), Something ancient listens within us. The light has forgotten its name but will remain. was recorded earlier this month at CreativeFest XIX, its single track also carrying a two-part title, The Age of Inner Turmoil. Fragments of Being.. And although I've generally eschewed solos & duos in this space for (more "social") trios & quartets, I've also often avoided the larger groups as well, meaning I haven't necessarily noted every Suspensão album, but I do want to note now what seems to be a particularly personal response from Rodrigues in this latest volume. So after double album Suspensão, I did note at the time the second album here, Jadis la pluie était bleue (from 2015), and then e.g. Physis (in August 2018, describing its "eerie desire to interrogate the basic contours of reality, especially the equivocation of foreground & background"), followed by Rayon Blanc & Sfumato in 2019 & 2020, most recently noting Impromptu (in June 2023), but not yet what had been the ensemble's newest recordings, Teufelmuzik & Frottage (both recorded May 2023). And the latter two do include Nuno Torres, Carlos Santos & Flak from this latest release — the fourteenth Suspensão issue on Ernesto Rodrigues' Bandcamp, although early releases also numbered multiple tracks individually & cumulatively (while the latest continues the more recent norm of a single track release) — the first two involved already from the first release (also an octet, but numbers have varied over the years from six to twelve...) — with Monsieur Trinité e.g. participating as well on Caesium from Isotope Ensemble, the most recent large ensemble release from Rodrigues (there a 16-tet, from last year's CreativeFest). Hernâni Faustino & André Hencleeday have also appeared on previous Suspensão albums, although (rounding out the current octet) Tiago Varela seems to be new to the formation — while having first appeared here (also with Rodrigues) for Genius Loci (reviewed in April), indeed all seven of the members having recorded already with Rodrigues this past year (& been referenced in this space for it!). So this is a relatively close group of associates, although one could certainly name others who've recorded more albums with Rodrigues.... But this impression of closeness, of a particularly personal response, is also illustrated in an accompanying photo with the musicians performing while clustered closely. Then there's a briefly tentative musical opening, some feelings of welcome, the forging of an interactive space... and into more ominous inputs, including quasi-industrial or naturalistic-chirping, an almost carnivalesque changing of tone & timbre across a sometimes gloomy landscape. There's also a sense of continuity, of narrativity per se (perhaps per the previous entry...), an articulation of collective (& personal) feeling, continuity per se being in some real sense continuing to live, continuing to find a path, ultimately continuing to interact. A sense of transition (recalling e.g. Anthony Braxton's ZIM?) thus dominates Something ancient listens within us... but within a perspective of continuity, i.e. of human choice & expression.... So while I've previously associated Suspensão more with naturalistic depictions, per especially Porto Covo (noted here in March 2017), and naturistic evocations do recur frequently across Rodrigues' work, I cannot now help but hear this typically-octet expression as more "personal" per se. And (spectral) harmonies & their transitions are indeed handled with sophistication & (often tight) familiarity, maintaining always some kinds of connection (of suspended voicings, one might say...), not so much around background equivocation here, but as a less noticed line now ready to offer another choice.... And some passages do come off more assertively, but there're certainly no final answers, as in life, so we go on.... So does the album title offer continuity, following the track title offering fragmentation? There's perhaps a continuity of spirit specifically implied here as well, a continuity across humanity (& beyond, well beyond...), continuity now also turning against itself in sickness. And I do believe that we're all seeing now that this sickness is not only in our "environment," but also in ourselves, for we are permeable creatures. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Dots and Dashes

 CD - Creative Sources Recordings - CS881, Lisbon 2026

1. Dots and Dashes - 22'30''

2. Teleies kai pávles  - 18'15''

3. CΤελείες και Παύλες - 06'00''

Floros Floridis - Clarinet, Bass Clarinet

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola, Crackle Box

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Michael Vorfeld - Percussion

Recorded October 2025, Berlin

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/dots-and-dashes

Reviews

Returning again to Creative Sources, and another reprise, Dots and Dashes (recorded in Berlin, also in October) finds Greek clarinetist Floros Floridis in another quartet with Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, now joined by Michael Vorfeld on percussion — following Xafnikes synantiseis (recorded in 2024 & referenced here that April), a quartet instead with Ulf Mengersen on bass (i.e. more per Ernesto's Lisbon String Trio formations...). As had Crossing the Floor (recorded four days earlier), Dots and Dashes then presents a more sophisticated interaction, i.e. building on ideas from the previous date, likewise relatively sparse & simmering music. But in replacing a more legato bass with often quiet & pointillistic percussion, Dots and Dashes also opts for a relatively more open texture, and correspondingly, senses of time. It can thus recall the quintet album La rambarde des songes... (with synthesizer, pace "crackle box" here — i.e. still not quite acoustic, per the previous entry as well...) from earlier this year, the voice there serving as a distinct (yet quiet) focus, versus more around clarinet & then bass clarinet for this quartet — indeed Floridis usually seeming centered (including by higher pitches from e.g. viola), his extended continuity in shaded spectral lines often seeming accented or intertwined by others.... Dots and Dashes is then another album that rewards concentrated listening with subtle textures & twisting continuities, latent evocations suggesting perhaps distant or otherwise difficult methods of communication... almost a study in expression per se (i.e. meta-expression) on first impression. Dots and Dashes also continues relations that seem to derive more from Guilherme Rodrigues than from Ernesto (although the latter does seem very at home here...), Floridis himself first appearing in this space with electro-acoustic quartet album Fields (reviewed here March 2024), and Vorfeld most recently with trio Flight Rvw2349 (reviewed September 2023). So senses of space & distance & subtle voicings can dominate impressions of Dots and Dashes, sinewy & shading continuities (per e.g. timeless floating of La rambarde des songes...), extended senses of personal expression (i.e. narrative-like...), occasionally more assertive. Subtle (e.g. chiming or tinkling, bent) metal also opens the second & third tracks, Vorfeld only occasionally coming to the fore (including e.g. briefly with hand drums accompanying a jungle-esque clarinet...), senses of pointillism propagated instead (already) through the ensemble (& even to the clarinet, in pops), senses of code.... Sometimes Dots and Dashes can be more lively, but also (& always) leaves me listening to the environment (& even a little confused about some common sounds...), thus suggesting senses of transformation, transformation through distended lines & continuities... perhaps constituting a kind of post-Cage meta-expressionism (i.e. pace bodily continuity beneath personality or emotion per se). Or one could simply call it a sophisticated, contemporary take on the post-jazz clarinet trio (i.e. with viola & cello combined for bass...), featuring masterful yet understated execution from Floridis et al. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Un enregistrement au Kuhlpot Social Club de Berlin en bonne compagnie l’année dernière. Je n’aurai de cesse de commenter autant que se peut les aventures de l’altiste Ernesto Rodrigues tant notre homme, le cerveau derrière les opérations du label Creative Sources (plus de 860 Cd’s au compteur !), ne soit convié sur les scènes auxquelles son extraordinaire talent le destine. En compagnie de son fils, le violoncelliste Guilherme Rodrigues, ils ont tous deux incarné l’avant-garde pointue du réductionnisme dans las années 2000-2010 tout en évoluant vers une musique de chambre exploratoire, raffinée et résolument contemporaine, subtile et miroitante. Ce qui est exemplaire ici, et finalement très intéressant, est qu’un clarinettiste méditerranéen et lyrique à souhait comme le grec Floros Floridis dialogue ici avec la paire des Rodrigues. Floros Floridis est un superbe clarinettiste et saxophoniste actif dans des contextes plus « free-jazz » comme on a pu l’entendre aux côtés de Gunther Sommer, Peter Kowald, Louis Moholo, Andrew Cyrille, ou le joueur de lyra Ilya Papadopoulos etc… mais aussi avec Paul Lytton dans les années 80. Ces rencontres d’artistes aux parcours et backgrounds différents sont en fait une ouverture et requièrent sensibilité, savoir-faire et intuition pour improviser collectivement et créer ce territoire commun qui met en valeur la musicalité intrinsèque de chacun au-delà des « écoles » et des idées toutes faites.

Pour bonne mesure, le chercheur de sons et percussionniste allemand Michael Vorfeld complète l’équipée pour colorer et commenter adroitement cette triade boisée. J’avais déjà bien apprécié le travail de Vorfeld en duo avec son compatriote Wolfgang Schliemann, autre percussionniste de choix ou le platiniste Von Bebber ou en trio avec un autre percussionniste, Burkhard Beins et le saxophoniste Dirk Marwedel. Il s’agit donc d’un musicien « pointu » d’un point de vue radical.

Alors, je m’émerveille de cette musique de chambre à la fois concertée et dérivante, faite d’ombres et de lueurs, introvertie autant qu’expressive. La gémellité des deux cordes aux mains des Rodrigues et leur sens du tissage moiré, de frottements en crescendo étirés, en phase avec le timbre boisé de la clarinette et des spirales en clair obscur ou des coups de bec dignes d’un pivert dans les ramures. Je n’insisterai jamais assez sur le sens aiguisé de la dynamique de leur musique, des nuances infinies et une belle inventivité dans les formes mouvantes. Cette convivialité subtile est souvent placée dans une autre perspective lorsque s’étalent par instants choisis les vibrations métalliques de l’instrumentarium de Vorfeld ou ses frictions crépitantes souterraines. J’avais déjà écouté et chroniqué un précédent recueil Creative Sources intitulé Xafnikes Synantiseis de Floridis/ E & G Rodrigues en compagnie du bassiste Ulf Mergensen, un opus aussi convaincant que ce Dots and Dashes. Ernesto et ses acolytes nous servent une musicalité toujours renouvelée au fil des très nombreuses parutions incluant vétérans au long cours (comme Floros Floridis) et d’excellents « jeunes » nouveaux venus et illustrant pour le meilleur la créativité collective de cette improvisation dite libre à son plus haut niveau. Fantastique ! Je ne m’en lasse pas tout en ayant l’embarras du choix. Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg (Orynx)