Murmúrios

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS170, Lisbon 2010

"Founded in Hamburg in 1989, TonArt Ensemble is a collective of free improvising musicians. It perceives itself as an open, democratic ensemble that works on different improvisational forms in a variety of instrumentations. Over the years and regardless of the respective instrumentation, TonArt Ensemble has created its own sound with a high recognition value. TonArt Ensemble’s work focuses on improvisation using graphic notations and the interaction with visual or prefabricated acoustic material; the ensemble has continuously engaged in new experiments including performances involving spatial structures, toy instruments, improvised opera as well as new music compositions for example from Christian Wolff. TonArt Ensemble has repeatedly invited international musicians to perform with them in Hamburg: Anthony Braxton, Vinko Globokar, Malcolm Goldstein, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe, Peter Kowald, Evan Parker, dieb13, and last but not least Wu Wei in 2009. Recordings include a CD with Anthony Braxton (commissioned work no. 151, „HatHut Records”) in 1991 and the CD 'Brot und Honig' (Bread and Honey) with Evan Parker (on „true muze“) in 1999.

This CD is the result of a TonArt Ensemble collaboration with the outstanding Portuguese performer and composer Ernesto Rodrigues (viola, violin, and electronics) during his stay in Hamburg on the occasion of a workshop fellowship granted by the City of Hamburg in December 2008.

We wish to express our appreciation to the Kulturbehörde Hamburg for making this creative musical cooperation possible."

Robert Klammer

1. Part 1 – 38’14’’

2. Part 2 – 17’30’’

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Nicola Kruse – Violin

Krischa Weber – Cello

Thomas Niese – Double bass

Helmuth Neumann – Trumpet, Ventil-Horn

Georgia Ch. Hoppe – Clarinet, Prepared Neapolitanian Mandolin, Objects

Thomas Österheld – Bass Clarinet

Hannes Wienert – Soprano Saxophone, Trompsax, Sheng, Tube

Heiner Metzger – Soundtable

Robert Klammer – Electronics, Analog Synthesizer, Zither, Objects

Recorded in December 2008, Hamburg
Cover design Robert Klammer

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/murm-rios

Reviews

TonArt is a nine-piece ensemble (strings, winds, electronics) that's worked with Braxton, Rowe, Parker, etc. though I think I've only heard them rarely. They're rather busy, in a skittering, sliding kind of way (not so very loud), far more so than some other freely improvising nonet, say, Phosphor. But the phrasing is gestural in the manner classically influenced efi, which cloys things a bit for me. The second of the two cuts develops a decent head of steam as the group begins chugging a bit, creating some friction. Overall, not bad but not as good as I imagine they're capable of being. Brian Olewnic (Just Outside)

Hamburg’s TonArt Ensemble is a contemporary music ensemble that often works with free improvisors (I remember one particular CD with Evan Parker, a dozen years ago or so). Murmúrios came out of a composer’s residence with Portuguese violist Ernesto Eodrigues. Yes, his music usually consists in very quiet gestures, sonic murmurs. Yet, this album is rather on the active side. I.e. there is a lot to hear, even though the music is rather static and made of microevents. The relationships between the events are often blurry, which leave a feeling of randomness. Interesting, but I will have to listen again in order to grasp the compositional structure underpinning this long two-part piece. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Ernesto Rodrigues ne se refuse rien, en tout cas aucune rencontre, pas même celle forcément imposante du TonArt Ensemble que l’on entendit jadis auprès d’Anthony Braxton, Vinko Globokar, Peter Kowald, Evan Parker ou Keith Rowe.
A son tour, alors : le violoniste évoluant faiblement à l’archet en opposition aux interventions brèves et éclatées de l’ensemble : d’abord des souffles dispendieux et puis une note de clarinette met un terme aux ébats et, de l’empêchement, naît une autre saveur. L’improvisation se fait répétitive et compose à force d’entasser des feuilles de murmures – tuba et saxophones sont maintenant de la partie. Alors, de frêles percussions commandent un autre développement : les musiciens s’accordant sur un plus grand volume en congrégation affolée.
La seconde partie de Murmúrios, de s’en trouver changée : le vindicatif Rodrigues faisant maintenant face à un drone installé par un accordéon puis à une poignée de larsens. Les conséquences de telles confrontations sont diverses : bruyantes, sévères, accablantes ou apaisantes, mais toutes malignes – luttant souvent contre le seul usage microtonal. Ainsi, le violoniste aura eu raison de faire le voyage jusqu’à Hambourg. Guillaume Belhomme (Le Son du Grisli)

TonArt Ensemble is a collective of free improvising musicians founded in Hamburg in 1989 and they have collaborated with Evan Parker, Braxton, Fred Frith just to name a few. Ernesto Rodriguez, I think you know him for his many works on Creative Sources, after having being invited in Hamburg for a workshop, the collaboration with this ensemble took to this interesting result. We're speaking about a release featuring two long suites. The first moves slow but really dynamic, for example it amazed me how after some object falls on the ground the intensity suddenly flows away to slowly return on the "crime scene". Considering the ensemble features many bowed instruments as well as many horns you can imagine now and then the compositions really sounds. Approaching to the nineteenth minute horns start growing but as for the "fallen object" episode what follows is a new silent-phase. In this continual and gentle up and down alternation they never go for a real explosion. Differently from the previous chapter, the second episode starts with high pitched notes and other loud sounds, always really balanced but even if they silence after a while, the second composition is so full of this high pitched notes and even if sometimes it really go beyond the listenable limit I think this one is the most interesting of the two compositions. Low notes alternated with high notes, solo voices and coral working together in the same track and loud cyclical parts conquering the scene. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)

As much a part of the necessary future of notated contemporary as well as improvised music, Hamburg’s TonArt Ensemble brings the discipline of New music, graphic notations and spatial structures to experimental performances. This impressive two-movement suite links the disciplined nine-member ensemble with input from Lisbon-based violist Ernesto Rodrigues, who regularly collaborates with many of Europe’s most accomplished Free musicians.

Collaboration is the key here, since rather than being a soloist standing apart from this democratically constituted group, Rodrigues merely adds his sounds to those created by the rest of the string section of violin, cello and double bass. Other musicians who have worked with the group, which was founded in 1989, include British saxophonist Evan Parker and Austrian turntablist dieb13. Able to evolve a novel strategy for every situation, besides clarinet, saxophone and trumpet, TonArt Ensemble members also use such non-conservatory-approved sound-sources here as zither, prepared mandolin, ventil-horn, trompsax, sheng, tube, synthesizer, soundtable and electronics.

Aiming for the release that characterizes “Part 2”, the much lengthier “Part 1” works through variants as the exposition and development of the suite take shape. As atonal as it is legato in spots, the nearly 38-minute first section includes episodes that swell to full fortissimo and others which deflate to mere whispers as the punctured polytones are spread using staccato licks. With no designated soloist, each of the 10 players adds pointillist dabs to complete the sonic picture. Pressured undercurrents from the strings become sharpened spiccato pops and mandolin plinks, while horn polyphony divides among crackles and rolled tongue slaps, chirps and altissimo screams. These timbres not only cozy up to reverberating electrical wave-forms, but simultaneously also reflect other percussive textures. There are ricocheting door-stopper-like rebounds, bovine-like bellows from pedal point cello motions and col legno bass string slaps.

Still, when string section polyharmonies threaten to turn overly melodic, an off-centre harmonica-like whimper, blurry synthesizer growls, hollow tube blows and bass clarinet yowls keep the contrapuntal interface on course. Oddly enough, even when a sudden burst of turntable friction abuts bird-like reed yaps, the impulses are continuously connective rather than disruptive.

Slightly past the half-way mark mercurial connections solidify among the different sections. Zither and mandolin plucks move to slackened harmonies until superseded by col legno and wood pounding asides from the string players, whose bow pressure exposes additional partials and vibrations. While this string-advanced ostinato undulates beneath the section work, so to do brass brays and reed tongue slaps, shortly afterwards rubato brass triplets and reed yelps join swaying, intermingled string tones to provide the introduction to Murmúrios’ second movement.

As one fiddler – perhaps Rodrigues – stridently squeals, the others move in circular concordance, until the tonal centre gradually shifts, thickening percussive sequences that include animal-like lows, lawnmower-like buzzing and UFO-like oscillations from the electronics. Eventually after it seems as if every TonArter has pushed his or her instrument to its timbral limit, a pause foreshadows a reductionist harmonization as the soundtable adds further layers of vocal gurgles and dissected instrumental sounds. Despite this atonality, the piece moves chromatically to the end.

Filled with enough dissonance to give nightmares to conventional chamber ensembles, compositions such as Murmúrios, and its interpretation by the TonArt Ensemble must be part of this sort of music’s future so that it doesn’t ossify. Ken Waxman (JazzWord)

[...] A primeira das verificações derivadas da audição destes tres discos e a diferente gestao do factor "near silence" que vem definindo esta corrente da musica improvisada. O TonArt Ensemble pode estar nos antipodas da estetica do grito de um Peter Brotzmann, mas os "murmurios" anunciados pelo titulo do CD sao profusos, agitados e inquietos. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

With a curriculum including names like Anthony Braxton, Fred Frith, Keith Rowe and Evan Parker, TonArt Ensemble has been at the vanguard of orchestral improvisation for over twenty years. This set with Ernesto Rodrigues was put on tape in 2008, when the Portuguese violist participated in a workshop fellowship granted by the City of Hamburg. Subdivided in two segments of 38’14” and 17’30”, the latter distinguished by an accentuated use of electronics in the initial stages, this music requires a global visualization of the instrumental wholeness rather than fixing ourselves to follow the different paths of the single voices. Not that this is unfeasible: for their unique nature, brass and reeds tend to result as more prominent in the mix, and the garrulous eccentricity defining a number of transposable spurts – enhanced by the contribution of instruments such as prepared mandolin and “tube” – is strictly connected with the sort of hiccupping wisdom that bonds apparently disjointed pitches in an advanced kind of acoustically unhinged choir. Speaking of which, it is also interesting to observe the rare instances in which the extreme fragmentariness of the contrapuntal foundation fuses its divergences into brief Oms amidst relatively stationary waters of droning strings. Instantly, the well-regulated mutual give and take between the musicians reprises, restarting a collective gasping that – although spoiled by percussive spikes and impermeable crumbles of cultivated noise – remains the crucial attribute of this fascinating work. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

Depuis une vingtaine d'années maintenant, l'ensemble TonArt explore différente formes d'improvisation collective, à travers des partitions graphiques quelque fois, ou de manière spontanée à d'autres moments. Le collectif a déjà collaboré avec quelques uns des grands noms de la musique improvisée, de l'improvisation libre et/ou non-idiomatique, tout en explorant différentes instrumentations et formations possibles. Pour Murmurios, publié en 2010 chez creative sources, l'altiste portugais Ernesto Rodrigues est invité par neuf des musiciens de l'ensemble allemand: Georgia Ch. Hoppe (clarinette, mandoline préparée, objets), Robert Klammer (cithare, électronique, synthétiseur analogique, objets), Nicola Kruse (violon), Heiner Metzger (soundtable), Helmuth Neumann (trompette, ventil-horn), Thomas Niese (contrebasse), Thomas Österheld (clarinette basse), Krischa Weber (violoncelle) et Hannes Wienert (saxophone soprano, trompsax, sheng, tube).

La première improvisation de ce large ensemble, une pièce de près de 40 minutes, explore les timbres et les textures des différents groupes d'instrument et des différents modes de jeux, de manière uniquement acoustique. L'orchestre choisit ici de n'explorer que les propriétés des instruments traditionnels et acoustiques (hormis quelques légères interventions bruitistes, tout de même très sporadiques). Une masse de vents succède aux cordes pincées de manière percussive, le groupe se décompose au profit d'interventions personnelles très courtes, très pointillistes et intègre le silence à l'improvisation, pour petit à petit se diriger vers une improvisation de plus en plus forte, large et massive, avant évidemment de retomber dans des formes d'improvisations plus restreintes et plus calmes. Tout paraît un peu brouillon aux premières écoutes, car on trouve de nombreuses idées et de nombreuses esthétiques (atonales, répétitives, minimalistes, spontanées, mélodiques), mais au fil du temps, c'est un sens de la structure étonnant et équilibré qui se dégage. Autant d'éléments esthétiques utilisés en fait pour s'opposer et s'équilibrer les uns les autres. 

Avec la deuxième pièce (qui dure celle-ci 17 minutes), l'ambiance est d'emblée plus intense. Une introduction avec des riffs de cordes pulsés, rapides et tendus, avant de passer à l'introduction du synthétiseur qui augmente grandement l'ambitus et les textures de l'ensemble. Ce dernier paraît en profiter pour tout lâcher durant cette improvisation plus urgente et spontanée, mais plus marquée par l'eai et les techniques instrumentales étendues. Des influences modernes et récentes, mais aussi plus anciennes, car c'est aussi l'esprit des improvisations collectives qui ont donné naissance au free jazz qu'on semble parfois entendre ici. Je pense notamment à l'urgence, à la véhémence, à la réactivité et à la passion des musiciens engagés dans cette improvisation vraiment puissante.

De la pure improvisation collective riche et variée, inventive et intense, qui parvient aussi bien à explorer des atmosphères très massives et puissantes, que calmes et aérées. Conseillé. Julien Héraud (ImprovSphere)

Founded in Hamburg in 1989, TonArt Ensemble is a democratic collective of free improvising musicians, here in collaboration with Portuguese string player and composer Ernesto Rodrigues. (Squidco)

Vinter

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS158, Lisbon 2010

What to do with so many paths open? What do you do about those that have been closed, have become “paths you do not use”? Well, eventually you go down them, equipped with knowledge gained from the last pendulum swing away from those lanes. There is a kind of theme that works its way through the improvisations on “Vinter”, supplied by Marten Küchen, a plaintive upward arc on his alto, filled with emotion, yearning, pain, hope. It’s the kind of element that would have been (would still be, often) frowned upon in much music produced post-AMM, occupying the niche known as “eai” where it would have been seen as too manipulative, too referential, too imagistic perhaps. And it may well have been at one time; there was likely a period when it would have been a too-safe fallback position. But time and experience act on things, on people, the pendulum constantly goes back and forth while the entire mechanism moves forward in time and new knowledge and perspective is acquired. It’s more complex than that of course. The musicians here never really operated within the bounds of a set category like electro-acoustic improvisation, as much as their work was informed by it, but skirted its borders, partaking of jazz-based improvisation, folk musics and contemporary “classical” developments in any number of subgenres. So there’s something of a mixture when looked at from one angle: the high-pitched, scraped-sounding strings of Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues on the one hand fit into the eai tradition of bowed objects while at the same time swelling into an almost chorale-like mass of support for that keening alto of Küchen’s. Between them, they often resemble wind whistling through cracks in wooden walls. Carlos Santos’ electronics remain largely abstract and often subtly percussive in sound but, too, join forces with the strings in those tidal surges, one of which, near the middle of the second cut, acquires a virtual climactic character. They’re unafraid of allowing a tinge of romanticism, something often looked askance upon if not forbidden, into their music. There’s an arc to the performance as a whole, the final track like an exhalation, the cello sounding low, the alto emitting breathy gasps. “Vinter” chooses a path between paths, acknowledging all sides but opting for an area between, where the leaves are untrodden, where the ground may be thornier but which fits with the essences of the four musicians, unconcerned as to fashion.

Brian Olewnick

1. Mörkertid – 06’04’’

2. Kyla – 14’02’’

3. Barmark – 27’48’’

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello

Martin Küchen – Alto Saxophone

Carlos Santos - Electronics

Recorded in May 2007, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos
Photography Ernesto Rodrigues

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

Reviews

I’m a taker for anything with the Rodrigues’ (father and son) names on it. Their synergy in improvisation is staggering, the textures they weave with their viola and cello, as minimalistic as they may be, are bewitching. This is not their first collaboration with electornician Carlos Santos, who knows how to make himself discreet in their presence. Add in saxman Martin Küchen who, in the context of this quiet, meticulous music embodies an unusual form of lyricism, and you have another memorable CD from the core of the Creative Sources label. A label of which it has been said several times that it releases too much music, but how can one complain about that when, regularly, it drops a cutting-edge improvisation gem like this one in your lap? François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Tonight I listened to another Creative Sources disc though, one of the most anticipated from the new batch this time, a quartet recording by Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues (cello and violin respectively) alongside Carlos Santos’ electronics and on this occasion Martin Küchen’s saxophone. Regular readers will know I am a big fan of Küchen’s music, or at least the one side of it I know well, he also plays a lot of free jazz. His new trio release with Seymour Wright and Keith Rowe is another great one I’ve been playing a lot and really must write about soon. How he would work alongside the familiar sound of Rodrigues senior and junior was interesting to me. Opening up the CD sleeve as I first played this disc a week or two back I also discovered the brief but thoroughly interesting liner notes were written by none other than Brian Olewnick, which only added to my interest in the music contained on the disc. So what’s it like? Hmm, a difficult one to describe really. On a basic level Vinter (as the album is titled) features good modern improvised music, not too loud, fast or talkative, but also not in any way minimal. Most of the sounds at least seem acoustic, but of course Carlos Santos electronics can’t be, though they slip between the bowing and wheezing sax almost without being noticed. The music has a feeling of gentle undulation to it, a kind of constant rise and fall throughout that make sit sound alive, slowly inhaling and exhaling. While there is no firmly fixed structure the need for Küchen to breathe in and out, and the need for the bow to be drawn back and forth across strings gives the music a slowly swaying sensation as if it is slowly contracting and expanding. The playing falls somewhere between the laminal approach of AMM and a more immediately expressive way of playing. None of the three tracks here come anywhere close to a drone form, and yet much of the beauty in this music comes from the way the sounds are layered on top of one another, the dual richness of the bowed strings combining with the buzz and fizz of the electronics and the purr and groan of the sax. The musicians are constantly responding to one another, continually changing their contributions, never allowing the music to rest on its laurels, but often allowing the sounds to just be themselves, placed in position with the pleasure coming from how they sound when placed in close proximity to one another. Listening here reminds me of staring down into a stagnant pond, watching the various layers of pondlife (excuse the analogy please!) to move en mass over each other, the colours and tiny details amplified and altered by what sits above and below them. Traditionally, the cello, violin, sax and electronics all “belong” to different areas of music making. Brought together here though, with all thought of egocentric soloing or maestro-esque performing removed from the equation they work really well together. This music certainly has a feeling of the communitarian about it, all sides gently nudging each other but generally contributing for the good of the whole rather than trying to stand out. The music has a feeling of multiple backgrounds juxtaposed over one another rather than any one or more musicians sitting in the foreground in front of others. Vinter is a release that will doubtlessly get lost in the crowd, partly because it has appeared on Creative Sources amidst one of their usual flurries of activity, but partly also because there is nothing startling about this CD, it is a good strong recording of some great improvisers playing together but that isn’t enough in this day and age for it to be mentioned in that many dispatches. This is a shame, as I have thoroughly enjoyed playing this one over recent days, and while it might not rewrite the rulebooks it certainly has a characteristic of its own, a breathing, bellows-like sensation that stops the music from settling, keeping it sounding alive and thriving as it plays in the room alongside me now. Excellent stuff then. Brian isn’t always right, but he is on this occasion! Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)
Le souffle, répété, qui traverse le saxophone alto de Martin Küchen pousse quelques notes hors de l’instrument. Dans un bruit de métal, Küchen fabrique ses plaintes d’opposition aux longues lignes sorties d’un duo d’archets – association d’Ernesto (violon) et Guilherme Rodrigues (violoncelle) – jusqu’à ce qu’un grave se répande pour donner à l’ensemble expérimental des airs de berceuse. Des airs que parasites et frottements chercheront à déstabiliser, eux qui rêveraient d’une ambient hérétique qui interdirait toute récupération ou tentative d’assimilation, musicales toutes deux.
Or, la berceuse tient ici par le jeu d’une ossature de clefs-satellites et de structures électroniques du discret et cubiste Carlos Santos et là par le soutien affirmé de l’archet de violoncelle d’un père rassurant (Guilherme). A force de cohésions, c’est une autre musique d’atmosphère que l’on traîne à terre pour que ne lui échappe pas un centimètre carré de surface ni, une fois recraché par le disque à mille lieux d’où elle est née, un centimètre cube d'espace environnant. Guillaume Belhomme (Le Son du Grisli)
I always wonder what should I do with yet another cd from such prominent artists as the ones that appear on this cd? Should I give it a shallow praise just because of their status or merely to the extent of their possibilities as musicians.
Well believe it or not I always try to get as much as it’s possible from the material given.
With “Vinter” there’s something I cannot put out in a way that I would be satisfied with – what I mean there’s certain degree of passion in their play which is far away from intellectual debris I have to go through when reviewing such cds. Passion and emotions which isn’t borrowed from anybody. Scraps bits and pieces of Rodrigues family sound mingled with yearn and pain of Kuechen’s alto give a foreground to Santos abstract percussive electronics.
Is there anything new in it? And what is the direction that this kind of music goes to – I guess it is just a matter of choosing your own path in accordance with intuitive, emotional shape that you give to what you create. Hubert Napiorski (Felthat)

A crepuscular cooperative of alto sax, viola, cello and electronics with some concession to throaty droning and a clear tendency to unveil buried aspects of the instrumental combination to turn them into relevant traits. In “Mörkertid” a preliminary static exposition is subsequently splintered in parallel singularities, each instrument gently wheezing and rasping until the piece’s natural demise. “Kyla” is intermittently characterized by a chugging pulse over which the other voices try and find a place to exist without being noticed. This includes unpolished upper partials, barely hinted sibilance, pitches that oscillate between full tone and dispirited sighing. These sounds are nothing previously unheard of, but an optimal integration makes them appear more beautiful than they really are. The segment’s overall yield is a valuable one, especially when the quartet starts moaning and groaning around the thirteenth minute. The lengthy “Barmark” is definitely the most difficult track to translate, informed as it is by cyclical shrieking highs and “classic” tampering with strings and bridge in several of its parts. Accordingly, this is also the least involving chapter in terms of sheer timbral attractiveness; except for a couple of concentrated surges and a handful of captivating buzzes, it’s not excessively momentous in the economy of an album that nevertheless remains a valid alternative to futile silence. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

When a cd is out on Creative Sources and it involves the Rodrigues you mostly know how it sounds like I don't wonna say it's predictable, in someway that can be true, but they have a distinct sound nobody can deny that. Even if the presence of Martin Kuchen and Carlos Santos adds a saxophone and electronics to the strings of the two portuguese players, the opening track would confirm the idea of predictability but never judge a book by the cover bros!. It's with the second track they throw in what sounds like the body of a melody, thumbs up for me since the cocktail goes really close to many contemporary electronic composition: sharp digital computer sounds, mute saxophone playing and just some odd bowed squeaks. The closing and longest composition of the whole lot sounds much more like many other works in which I've heard these players: unplayed dissonant notes, long pauses and similar tricks. The last track offers a classic contemporary sound, above all when they leave unplayed unsounding jamming for crippled or laud playing, a strange interaction, but still really good. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)
[...] Quando, em "Vinter", Martin Kuchen introduz repetições rítmicas na trama, esta a distanciar-se umas boas milhas dos ultra-minimalistas conceitos de Radu Malfatti e Taku Sugimoto. Rui Eduardo paes (Jazz.pt)
This is by far the best album in the series here reviewed, with Martin Küchen on alto saxophone; Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, and Carlos Santos on electronics.
This utterly sparse album consists of three tracks, with a interesting sounds evolving slowly and hypnotically into the longest last track, on which an ear-piercing repetitive phrase creates a haunting effect for other dark rumbles and noises to create an atmosphere you will not forget. Despite the original inhospitable environment, when you listen again and again to the album, it has a kind of comfortable recognition of wanting to be part of it. Stef (Free Jazz)

With minimal means, the quartet of Martin Küchen, Ernesto Rodriques, Guilherme Rodrigues, and Carlos Santos on alto sax, viola, cello and electronics, respectively, creates a listening experience of symphonic proportions. While Küchen is a Swedish musician, the others are Portuguese, Ernesto Rodrigues being the founder of the prolific Creative Sources Recordings, a label devoted to improvised music. Cellist Guilherme Rodrigues is his son, and electronics wizard Santos, is also, like the senior Rodrigues, a visual artist.

Three sections, or movements, make up Vinter. It begins with "Mörkertid," a slowly evolving 5 minutes of subtle tones and textures, during which each of the instruments blends uncannily with the others so that it becomes nearly impossible at times to discern who's doing what, but a new kind of sound evolves in the process.

A more defined role is given each player in "Kyla," the second movement, as Santos' electronics provide a rhythmic Doppler ostinato, while violist Ernesto Rodrigues' searing, cicada-like line dances with Guilherme Rodrigues' at times growling cello. The breathy long tones of Küchen's alto followed by some plaintiff melodic cells make this a very haunting core to the work. The sounds in this section include such poignant textures as raspings and swelling screeches from the strings, with contrasting lines of more suave bowing and a long undertow of electronic intensity building throughout. The abstractness of this section is highly creative in the variety of sounds and textures.

"Barmark, " at 27 minutes the longest of the sections of this suite, gets into even more depth in sound exploration and range of expressiveness, while keeping a thread via the kind of eerie, spare mood of the whole album which, judging by its title, aims to communicate the feeling and experience of that bleak season, and manages to do so in a beautiful way. Paul Serralheiro (The Squid's Ear)

Incredible and telepathic ea-oriented improv from violist Ernesto Rodrigues, saxophonist Martin Kuchen, cellist Guilherme Rodrigues, and electronicist Carlos Santos. (Squidco)

Finally, "Vinter", recorded also at TCHA3 actually earlier in May 2007, but released in 2010. Here the family is matched with two absolute ingenious musicians: Martin Küchen on alto, and Carlos Santos, the local electronics wizard. The end effect is breathtaking.

The super-quartet plays three track, starting with a 6 minutes long "Mörkertid", a kind of warm-up. 14 minutes long "Kyla" is simply amazing: The symbiosis between Martin creating various effects using saxophone keys and simply blowing with the strings and electronics

background is incredible. The piece is peaceful, yet extremely emotional and expressive. But, the absolute highlight is "Barmark", a 28 minutes long voyage through the land of free minimal music married to Scandinavian free improvisation. Maciej Lewenstein

Fower

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS161, Lisbon 2009

1. Heuch – 24’42’’

2. Haugh -11’00’’

3. Hume – 05’10’’

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello

Neil Davidson – Acoustic Guitar

Hernâni Faustino – Double Bass

Recorded in November 2007, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos
Photography Maria Castro

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

Reviews

Neil Davidson has taken his acoustic guitar on many fascinating sonic adventures, forever pushing the language of sounds possible with this instrument to new places. Here he joins a group of musicians from Portugal led by the rather legendary Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and also featuring his son Guilherme Rodrigues on 'cello and Hernani Faustino on double bass. Here the four - sorry, Fower - play with hushed minimal intensity, leading to some passages which let loose with freedom and passion, a range which makes this album an absorbing journey. JC (MelodyBar)

Looking back over recent posts this morning it occurred to me that it has been a good while since I wrote about any acoustic improv, and even longer since I took a Creative Sources disc from the pile to play. Tonight then I have been listening to Fower, the latest release on Creative Sources by the quartet of Neil Davidson, (acoustic guitar) Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues (viola and cello respectively) and Hernani Faustino (double bass). The first three names in this version on a string quartet are all favurites of these pages, the last completely new to me.
Split into three tracks, Fower is a bit of a bumpy ride, not exactly easy listening. All of the musicians seem to grind and scrape at their instruments rather than stroke and caress them. The instruments sound as if they have been recorded up close and so everything sits in the foreground of the recording, the four musicians nudging and shoving each other’s sounds around in the search for space, the music formed from this interactive game. The first piece on Fower, named Heuch, and lasting some twenty-two minutes is a gritty, dry affair with a serrated edge. While it is always clear that we are listening to four wooden boxes with strings stretched across them, it is quite difficult to pin down sounds to particular musicians. There is little silence, and what we hear is a constantly changing series of tight musical forms made up of the musicians’ muscular, jagged inputs. While it isn’t particularly loud (its certainly not quiet either) and the sounds are maybe not as harsh as can be heard elsewhere, there is a certain aridity to the music. Like a photoshopped picture with the contrast turned right up very sound is firmly stated, and the music feels like it is has been scratched directly into the surface of the CD, such is the immediacy of the music. Mostly the instruments seem to be played with bows, but they do not all sound traditionally tuned, and their body seems to be played as often as the strings, the closely miked recording amplifying the slightest scratch and scrape into something bigger. While the four musicians are very much in tune with one another, and they merge together easily into the one writhing mass of dry sound it is hard to pick out particular voices in the music, with perhaps only Davidson’s guitar easy to identify in places.
The second track named Haugh clocks in at half the length of the first, and at just over five minutes the final Hume is half as long again. This last piece is perhaps the quietest of the trio, still utilising similar sounds but with a little more air in the music and a more delicate sense of structure. While the first two tracks barge their way out of the speaker and roll about the floor fighting, Hume sounds like a more considered affair, still full of twists and turns, but with a more composed feel. Overall Fower is a tough listen, something that needs to be engaged with fully as a listener to take anything from it. Closing your eyes and really getting to grips with the music, almost literally wrestling with its sinewy vigour reaps rewards however. The interplay between the quartet is excellent, and only under close scrutiny is this completely apparent, as picking apart Fower’s vibrating, grinding structures reveals how well these four musicians are listening to, and anticipating each other’s moves. Fower takes some work, but spend time with it and it pays you back with interest. This isn’t an album that will appear in anyone’s end of year lists, and won’t get many mentions in the hip and trendy corners of the internet, but its one that fans of good, robust and detailed improvised music should pay attention to. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

Com a diferença de que uma guitarra (tocada por Neil Davidson) está no lugar do violino, é um quarteto de cordas que encontramos neste CD, mas raramente o reconhecemos enquanto tal, pelo menos face ao modelo erudito secularmente instalado. Em raras passagens, também, conseguimos identificar os instrumentos "em cena": estes são utilizados de formas inconvencionais e na sua totalidade, ouvindo-se tanto a manipulação das cordas como das madeiras circundantes. As improvisações estão em permanente tensão, e mesmo os alívios são dramáticos, sendo este um dos mais interessantes discos protagonizados por Ernesto Rodrigues (viola) nos últimos anos. Participam ainda o seu filho Guilherme (violoncelo) e Hernâni Faustino (contrabaixo). Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

Viola, acoustic guitar, cello and bass, not leagues apart from the prior release but, perhaps due to the absence of someone like Küchen, lacking some of the intensity. They do get there, on tracks like "haugh", but it's an intensity arrived at more through hyperactivity than fundamental being. "Fower" is perfectly fine, a decent improv recording, but not essential. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

A session recorded in November 2007 and featuring the Rodrigues father-and-son team, Neil Davidson on acoustic guitar, and bassist Hernani Faustino (of the Red Trio). Fower offers three stunning, extremely textural pieces. I don’t think I’ve heard a single note attack. It’s all rubbing, grinding and emphasized stroking, gritty textures, the raw feel of raw materials rubbing one against another. Yet, the artistic intent is there, unfolding, orchestrating the unorchestrable. Disconcerting, fascinating ghostly music. Bravo.François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Fower é mais uma empreitada do duo Rodrigues, desta vez pai e filho têm a companhia do escocês Neil Davidson (na guitarra acústica, colaborador da Glasgow Improvisers Orchestra e já editou um solo na CS) e Hernâni Faustino (membro do excelente RED Trio, no contrabaixo). Quatro cordofones distintos, quatro exploradores servindo-se de instrumentos preparados. O quarteto desenvolve um som coeso, maturado, onde a aparente leveza não é mais do que incrível precisão. Ao longo de três faixas o quarteto Rodrigues²/Davidson/Faustino embrulha o som das cordas friccionadas, dedilhadas e criativamente exploradas numa massa comum, onde os elementos individuais são raros (só na última faixa, “Hume”, é possível distinguir o som de cada instrumento com mais detalhe – mas esta termina abruptamente nos seus curtos 5 minutos). Distinto de boa parte do catálogo CS, este disco é marcado pela união sonora, pela partilha, pela decisão bem conseguida de quatro músicos que optaram caminhar numa única direcção. Nuno Catarino (Bodyspace)

Just as the leafless tree adorning the CD’s cover, the sonic picture expressed by this quartet (viola, acoustic guitar, cello and double bass are the respective instruments) is devoid of frondescence and embellishments. It ultimately comes off as a rather unfriendly landscape, but also presents sudden openings where genuine, if undernourished pitches make themselves heard in between quagmires and puddles of concrete grunting and groaning symptoms that, in turn, give the idea of a disembodiment. The tenaciousness shown by the musicians in keeping things under pressure, avoiding easy concessions to “beauty” (as commonly intended) is admirable, despite the fact that this is the exact reason for which the casual listener could run away from such a release at Usain Bolt-like speed. Let’s be honest, though: is Creative Sources a label for that kind of consumer? It is not even completely accepted as an independent voice in certain snobbish circles, so you know that when there’s no silence involved, when the players are willing to experiment with alternative solutions (which, quite often, imply the generation of sounds that are nearer to those coming from a wood-crafting artisan’s room than to something connected to Zen-ish mannerism) then it’s a “take it or leave it” sort of issue. For my own taste this record is pretty fine, hiding a considerable degree of musicality amidst the roughness of its traits; many others might not agree, unable to filter out the non-harmonic-yet-still-interesting substances and the spontaneous designs elicited by the strings – arcoed, plucked or eBowed, it doesn’t matter – from what they perceive as sheer unattractive music. Their loss, of course. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

This an all acoustic instruments cd based on a line up including an acoustic guitar, a cello, a viola and a double bass, being on Creative Sources and featuring both the Rodriguez guy it has "that" characteristic sound. Unsounded bowed and scratched instruments interacting softly, gently but also firmly as the concrete dogmas taught us all. Funny since even if there's no brushed drumming sometimes that's the effect you hear, above all during the first long track, that later develops into a played composition with more violent playing and soft quiet scary melodies. The second composition moves along the same lines but in a way has more interesting interactions, more instrumental dialogue and if you ask me the coral playing reaches more intensity. The last track is just five minutes long and brings in a more frontal guitar approach but at the same time reminds a lot the strong identity that's behind the other two compositions. Sometimes "fower" has some interesting solution but it's not so far from many other Creative Sources works really close to following a bit too blindly the "unwritten dogmas" of electro-acoustic improvising. Andrea Ferraris (Chain DLK)

Avant de passer aux albums plus récents parus sur Creative Sources, je finis cette rétrospective Ernesto Rodrigues avec un dernier quatuor datant de 2009. Quatuor presque traditionnel si ce n'est que le violon est ici remplacé par la guitare acoustique du britannique Neil Davidson. Mais hormis ce léger écart à la tradition, on retrouve toujours Ernesto à l'alto, son fils Guilherme au violoncelle, et Hernâni Faustino à la contrebasse. Parmi ces cinq productions d'Ernesto datant de 2006 à 2009, Fower est certainement ma préférée après le fantastique Drain, ce qui m'amène à conclure que l'exclusivité des instruments à cordes (car Drain était un trio pour cordes) est certainement ce qui réussi le mieux à cette musique si particulière.
On a ici trois pièces, mais c'est la première, "heuch", qui occupe plus de la moitié de la durée du disque. Durant cette improvisation, le premier principe du quatuor est comme toujours d'agencer des textures, et pour ce faire, les quatre musiciens n'hésitent pas à retourner leurs instruments et leurs techniques dans tous les sens. Des double-cordes sont frénétiquement répétées, les instruments sont percutées à même le corps boisé, ou sur le chevalet, le crin des archets est autant utilisé que le bois de ce dernier, les cordes de la guitare sont actionnés par un objet motorisé pour en faire un bourdon, les harmoniques crissent, les basses du bois et des registres extrêmes envoûtent par leur rondeur. Si la musique du quatuor ressemble le plus souvent à un drone homogène, elle n'en est pas moins vivante et mouvementée, différentes nappes se succèdent, des nappes bruitistes, des nappes faites d'harmoniques, des nappes rythmiques; les drones peuvent aussi bien être agressifs, minimalistes, rythmiques, calmes, etc. Même si la plupart de l'improvisation est jouée à l'archet et si le son collectif est plutôt homogène, il y a de nombreux reliefs, des aspérités incessantes, des "accidents" souvent heureux, tels les pizzicato énergiques qui concluent cette pièce. On est plus envoûté que lassé par cette musique qui accentue les timbres et les textures avant tout, mais n'est pas sans accorder une grande importance aux variations d'intensité et de puissance.
Les deux dernières pièces, "haugh" et "hume", ne s'éloignent pas de cette lignée entamée par "heuch". On entend toujours les cordes motorisées de Davidson, les archets sur la touche ou sur le chevalet, des staccatos effrénés et abrasifs. La seule différence provient surtout de la durée des pièces, le fait qu'elles soient beaucoup plus courtes accentuent les différences d'intensités et cette variable prend alors une importance plus consistante, voire essentielle. D'un instant à l'autre, on peut passer d'un léger bruit blanc très faible à un mur de bourdons exceptionnellement puissant et grinçant. Les transitions sont tout de même très maîtrisées, il n'y a pas de rupture entre les différentes phases, mais le contraste est tout de même plus flagrant du fait d'une importance plus négligée aux développements des différentes textures et des nappes successives.
Un disque exceptionnellement intense pour ce genre d'improvisation, Fower sait en effet manier les contrastes d'intensités, les différentes formes de tension et de puissance, ainsi que les relations entre ces éléments, mais aussi, et surtout, toute l'étendue sonore des instruments de ces cordes maîtrisées avec une virtuosité ahurissante. Trois improvisations pour quatuor à cordes, où chaque instrumentiste paraît avoir très bien intégré la gestion des tensions et des intensités mises en application dans la musique savante, la radicalité de l'improvisation libre européenne, la puissance du free jazz et la virtuosité du réductionnisme. Un album intense et éprouvant, puissant et contrasté, aventureux en somme, sans tomber dans le formalisme. Recommandé! hjulien (ImprovSphere)

Three tracks of acoustic improv from an understated string quartet that uses extended techniques and the whole of their instruments to make unusual and rewarding music. (Squidco)