Suspensão

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS189, Lisbon 2011

CD1

1. 24'04''

2. 24'50''

CD2

1. 24'20''

2. 19'45''

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola, Harp, Metronomes, Objects

Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello

Abdul Moimême – 2 Prepared Electric Guitars

Gil Gonçalves - Tuba

Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone

Armando Pereira - Accordion, Toy Piano

Carlos Santos - Electronics, Piezo elements

José Oliveira - Percussion

Recorded in June 2010, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/suspens-o

Reviews

[...] Esse é também o nome aplicado para identificar este octeto liderado pelo violetista Ernesto Rodrigues. Pelos músicos envolvidos (Guilherme Rodrigues, Nuno Torres, Gil Gonçalves, Armando Pereira, Carlos Santos e José Oliveira, além de Abdul Moimême), poderíamos pensar que se trata de um "redux" da Variable Geometry Orchestra, mas na verdade consiste numa expansão das coordenadas que Rodrigues vem aplicando às suas pequenas formações. Ou seja, não se encontram aqui as massas sonoras e os choques de frequências da VGO, mas, simplesmente, uma Lilliput mais povoada. A linha estética adoptada é, pois, a do reducionismo ortodoxo, com foco nos jogos tímbricos e na manutenção de texturas. A esse nível, o que ouvimos é muitíssimo digno. [...] Rui Eduardo Paes

Finally, from a bit later in the same year, we have "Suspensão",an double disc octet date with Rodrigues (viola,harp, metronomes, objects), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello), Gil Gonçalves (tuba), Nuno Torres (alto sax), Abdul Moimeme (prepared electric guitars, objects), Armando Pereira (toy piano, accordion), Carlos Santos (electronics, piezo elements) and José Oliveira (percussion). In some ways, it recapitulates the journey of the previous decade, a bit over-busy here but well integrated and spaced there (no mean feat with eight players). The second and fourth of the four lengthy pieces here work excellently, really establishing a true-sounding space (the accordion helping out greatly). The other two, perhaps intentionally, harken back to the busier, scratchier approaches of prior years. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

A free improvisation octet recorded in June 2010. A large group, a double CD, with four 20-minute improvisations, all different and unique, but all proceeding from a single silence-and-sound-based approach. The fourth piece contains surprising passages, and the first one irradiates a strange beauty. I note that Ernesto Rodrigues is playing harp, metronomes and objects alonside his trusty viola (a first?). Nice interplay of confusions between extended techniques on acoustic instruments (Gonçalves’ tuba, Oliveira’s percussion, G. Rodrigues’ cello) and electric/electronic instruments (Moimême’s prepared guitars, Santos’ electronics). This album does not reinvent the approach of Rodrigues and company, but it does provide a potent illustration of it. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Today was a lovely day, with the exception of a trip to the supermarket I spent it alone in relative peace and quiet, catching up on no end of bits and pieces I needed to catch up on, the results of which I should be able to share soon, and cooking and eating far too much nice food. I’ve also listened to an awful lot of music, both on CD and on the radio (Mahler’s second at The BBC Proms) before finally settling on a double CD on the Creative Sources label for extended listening. The disc in question is a studio recording named Suspensão by an octet of (I think mainly Portugese) musicians. The group consists of: Ernesto Rodrigues, (viola, harp, metronomes, objects) Guilherme Rodrigues, (cello) Gil Concalves, (tuba) Nuno Torres, (alto saxophone) Abdul Moimeme, (prepared electric guitars, objects) Armando Pereira, (toy piano, accordion) Carlos Santos, (electronics, piezo elements) and José Oliviera (percussion).

Now, in my experience, when you put eight improvisers together in a studio, one of two things happen. Either the music becomes incredibly dense, loud and soupy as everyone tries to be heard, or, compensating against this, the musicians end up making very quiet music as nobody wants to take the lead. Assuming that the music here is indeed improvised (there is nothing on the sleeve notes to suggest otherwise) it actually manages to avoid both of the aforementioned scenarios and is quite remarkably well balanced. There are four long pieces, two on each disc, and while there are characteristics individual to each of the four, all of them share a slow pace, a feeling of laminal juxtaposition and overlap rather than call and response and aside from the ending of the fourth track, where a series of clicking metronomes coalesce into a hypnotic mass, a soft, earthy set of sounds is used throughout. In fact, letting this music colour the room around me as I have worked on things today has been a real pleasure.

Assuming that Suspensão translates from Portugese to mean Suspension, this is a fitting title for this music. From the off it feels light and airy despite the large number of musicians, as if the eight sets of sounds are hovering over one another, accumulating and snagging in places but generally existing free of each other. Some of the instruments are easy to identify, E. Rodrigues’ harp standing out when it is heard, the depth of the tuba easy to spot and the accordion, an instrument which, when played “properly” I really can’t abide is used to good effect as well, adding little spots of colour here and there when it does indeed sound like an accordion, lost in the masses when it doesn’t. The first of the four tracks is maybe the lightest, sounding almost tide-like as little swells of instruments rise together for a few moments before falling away to near nothing for a brief while before the next little wave. Throughout all of the tracks though the sounds continually shift and evolve, with no one element ever holding a continually dominant position, a softly bowed cello replaced by a growling guitar pick-up then a spry of toy piano, an electronic hum and a fluttering sax line. Its all very well recorded as well, some feat with such a large group.

At the end of the fourth track, everything stops and Ernesto Rodrigues, presumably having discussed this in advance sets a number of metronomes running, initially just one, then several more. At first it seems easy to follow the ticking, find the patterns, but then too many sounds quickly appear and it all becomes a mass of clicks, all pitched the same, quickly moving from something clearly rhythmic to something chaotic. After a few minutes of this everything cuts out slowly until a single metronome remains, ticking alone for a few seconds before it is stopped to end the album. I’m not certain how this little epilogue relates to the rest of the music, though clearly it has been placed there deliberately. It works well though, and acts a little like a cleanser, clearing out the ears and mind after approaching two hours of richly coloured music.

Suspensão is a fine two discs of lovingly considered and created music. If your preference is for the textural over the torrential, purr over power, then this set of electroacoustic improvisations will suit you fine. As nice a recording of a large group as I’ve heard in a good while and one of the best of a considerable bunch of releases from this Iberian group of musicians. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

Silence with two is one thing, but silence with eight musicians is a real feat. The band is Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, harp, metronomes, objects, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Gil Gonçalves on tuba, Nuno Torres on alto saxophone, Abdul Moimeme on prepared electric guitars, Armando Pereira on accordion and toy piano, Carlos Santos on electronics and piezo elements, and José Oliveira on percussio. The "suspense" in the title is well chosen, as the music's minimalism creates the kind of tension that you wish would explode, come to a paroxysm, come to an orgasm, but it doesn't. The sound is the calm before the storm, the fear before the killing, the sensitivity before the climax. That kind of tension. Slowly evolving, close to silence, with instruments adding shades of sound, whispers, scrapings, bows, ... Stef (Free Jazz)

Deux CD, quatre pièces improvisées, huit musiciens. Une équation simple mais qui a quelque chose de monumental pour ce disque paru sur le label d'Ernesto Rodrigues, également présent sur ce disque, à la direction, à l'alto, mais aussi à la harpe, aux métronomes et différents objets acoustiques. A ses côtés, on retrouve de nombreux fidèles de la scène portugaise, la plupart étant des collaborateurs réguliers d'Ernesto, tels son fils Guilherme, au violoncelle, Abdul Moimême à la guitare électrique préparée et Carlos Santos à l'électronique et aux "éléments piézoélectriques"; mais également Gil Gonçalves au tuba, Nuno Torres au saxophone alto, Armando Perreira à l'accordéon et au piano jouet, et enfin, José Oliveira aux percussions.
Une formation instrumentale impressionnante, dense et presque exhaustive (dans la mesure où on retrouve toutes les familles d'instruments). Mais contrairement à ce qu'on pourrait présager, ces quatre longues improvisations sont tout de même très espacées, les musiciens ne sont que très rarement plus de quatre à jouer simultanément. La musique semble dirigée, et Ernesto prend bien soin de laisser de la place à chacun, un peu à la manière d'une Klangfarbenmelodie mais très étirée ici. Pas de pointillisme à la Webern, les musiciens portugais posent plutôt des nappes longues et étirées, où l'espace entre chaque timbre prend autant d'importance que le timbre luimême.
Un timbre rentre, donc, puis un second, puis un troisième, tandis que le premier se retire et ainsi de suite. L'espace sonore n'est jamais saturé, le temps est lisse mais les fractures sont constantes, fractures de timbres à l'intérieur d'une durée lisse et d'une pulsation indéterminée parce que absente. Les changements d'ambiances et de textures sont incessants, aucun son ne reste en place et s'impose, et pourtant, la linéarité de ces pièces est monolithique (à l'intérieur d'une pièce comme des quatre qui s'enchaînent sans que l'on ne s'en aperçoive). La cohérence qui s'établit dans la continuité est impressionnante et majestueuse. Les cellules de timbres qui s'agencent peuvent parfois être très intenses, très plates, certaines très originales (comme ces métronomes dissymétriques, ou les nappes discrètes de Carlos Santos qui parviennent si bien à appuyer et enrichir n'importe quel type de texture, la profondeur et le charisme du tuba) et d'autres plus convenues. L'octet s'amuse à déployer toutes les combinaisons instrumentales possibles et explore différents agencements de familles instrumentales tout en développant des réponses logiques relativement à chaque cellule, et à l'ensemble de la pièce.
Et pourtant, je n'y arrive pas. Peut-être que j'ai un peu trop écouté Ernesto ces derniers temps, je ne sais pas, mais en tout cas, cette continuité constamment brisée par les ruptures texturales tout en étant maintenue dans une temporalité linéaire m'a franchement fatigué.
L'espace et l'agencement des timbres est très bien géré, des textures se font à l'intérieur d'un espace vaste, mais le fait que ces textures soient constamment modifiées par le retrait ou l'ajout d'un instrumentiste fait qu'elles n'ont pas le temps de prendre véritablement sens. Malgré une inventivité exceptionnelle de chaque musicien comme du groupe pris dans sa globalité, les architectures sonores proposées ici me paraissent trop froides du fait de leur absence de déploiement dans le temps et de leur fracture incessante. Comme une sorte de pointillisme étirée, de "lignisme" pourrait-on dire, car le groupe trace des lignes sans forcément de rapport les unes avec les autres, des lignes qui s'agencent et se superposent pour former un certain volume (géométrique) précis et déterminé. Et même si la créativité dans la production des lignes est impressionnante, autant que la sensibilité de l'écoute, et l'attention au collectif, l'inconstance des volumes pris dans une temporalité elle très constante dans sa linéarité monolithique m'a plutôt ennuyé. Une musique qui laisse une étrange sensation d'éphémère et d'éternité. Hjulien (Improv Sphere)

Deux disques et deux plages à chaque fois. Donc : Quatre plages en suspension sur lesquelles évoluent Ernesto Rodrigues (violon, harpe, métronome, objets), Guilherme Rodrigues (violoncelle), Gil Gonçalves (tuba), Nuno Torres (alto), Abdul Moimême (guitare électrique préparée, objets), Armando Pereira (piano-jouet, accordéon), Carlos Santos (électronique) et José Oliveira (percussions).

Un tuba du bout des lèvres, un archet sur une note, un timide piano-jouet, se font entendre l’un après l’autre sous des chapes de nébulosités qu’ils perceront bientôt pour s’être entendus, motivés par les promesses de l’accordéon de Pereira et l’électronique de Santos, sur un brillant assaut. S’ensuit alors une série de revendications, chaque intervenant ou presque réclamant d’être l’autorité derrière laquelle il semble nécessaire de se ranger.

Charmantes, les tergiversations peinent à s’imposer tout à fait et les musiciens décident alors d’incarner leurs expressions : diverses, souvent courtes, presque toujours inquiètes. Les plages du second disque sont minées et les improvisateurs rivalisent maintenant de précautions : l’archet d’Ernesto bourdonne et celui de Guilherme claque, ailleurs des cordes sont frottées. Avec l’exercice, les rivalités s’éteignent. Leurs ambitions perdues sur Suspensão courent toujours. Guillaume Belhomme (Le Son du Grisli)



A large group under the direction of violinist Ernesto Rodrigues (also on harp, metronome & objects) in 4 extended improvisations of great suspense and tension through sound and silence. (Squidco)

Erosions

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS172, Lisbon 2010

Madrid, July 7th, very, very sunny and over 36º centigrade. Taking refuge in my studio, which is surprisingly cool, I crank up the Mac and wade through the spam to discover an e-mail from Ernesto Rodrigues. He and Neil Davidson are pleased with the music we recorded in trio in March and want to make a CD of it. Also, Bay-area poet and photographer Mary Petrosky has sent me a message intriguingly titled “Rocks I’ve Met,” with some striking photos of… well, rocks.One is especially beautiful in its erosion. The water that caused it is no longer visible, but the rock’s surface bears witness to the process. Of course I’m not looking at the rock, but at a photograph, which in turn bears witness to the rock. Now, I’m writing about it. Writing about what? The rock? The erosion? The photo? The process of looking at the photo? The fact that I’m writing about it? Maybe it’s the heat, but the whole thing seems to twist and turn around itself like the curlicue erosion of the stone itself. Rocks I’ve met. The music Ernesto, Neil and I made in March was also a process, and like the water long disappeared from between the eroded walls of a dry stone canyon, it, too, has left its mark. There is something implacable about how water erodes a canyon, as there is about the endless sequence of waves with which the ocean assaults and eventually conquers even the most robust breakwater. At first glance, water seems to adapt to the form of its container, and yet, over time, the opposite occurs; it wears away its surroundings, imposing a shape derived from its own flow. In that process, the stone is scoured and polished, forced to reveal something of itself that would otherwise have remained hidden. Does music do this? Is it as implacable as water? Does it scour? Polish? Erode? Reveal? If so, what is the subject of this erosion? What bears witness? What is revealed? Certainly not the grooves of a recording, much as they may resemble a miniature canyon. Perhaps the CD is like the photo, bearing witness to the rock but not actually subject to the erosion it indirectly reflects. Water is implacable because it has no will. It merely follows physical laws, though often in very complex ways. Mathematical models of wave behavior, for example, are enormously elaborate. And in collective improvisation, the will or intentions of the improvisers interact in ways that vary constantly between synergy and its exact opposite (a sort of negative synergy in which the whole is less that the sum of the parts). An improviser can act with a particular intention, only to find that his act coincides with that of another in ways that may totally negate his initial intention. Yet that interaction may just as easily create a new level of meaning in which the outcome of both acts is somehow even more appropriate than either of the improvisers expected. So collective improvisation cannot be the continuous reflection of any given intentionality. Like water, it flows, and like waves, its exact movement almost inevitably eludes prediction. As it flows, water erodes its container, wearing away the hardest of surfaces to reveal what is beneath. Extending our metaphor, we could say that sound flows from the actions of musicians, and among listeners. As such, it erodes both. But it also polishes both, and most of all, it reveals both. So if this music is the water, then we, the musicians, and you, the listener, are its container, the bared stones of its canyon. Have we been eroded? Unquestionably. Polished? No doubt. But what has been revealed? Wade Matthews

1. 08:24 – 08’24’’

2. 03:27 – 03’27’’

3. 05:56 – 05’56’’

4. 06:20 – 06’20’’

5. 14:08 – 14’08’’

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Neil Davidson - Acoustic Guitar

Wade Matthews - Digital Synthesis, Manipulated Field Recordings

Recorded in March 2010, Madrid
Cover design Carlos Santos
Photography Mary Petrosky

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


Reviews

Viola, acoustic guitar, field recordings and processes of synthesis: those are the components here. There is no bombast and yet such quiet music proves to be all-encompassing to my attention. Wade Matthews has written a most interesting sleeve note comparing the flow of music with water, gradually eroding and revealing, hence the album title. Whilst it is music of inner spaces, it also seems to reach out to something wider. Maybe I'm hearing a hint of radio astronomy sound, implied unconsciously in the process... or maybe that's just what these erosions are revealing in me? JC (Boa Melody Bar)

Tired and thoroughly fed up tonight for a number of reasons, but the good news is that I have managed to get a week off of work next week, a much needed chance to recharge the batteries a little and sort things out around here, which I haven’t been able to do since the crazy Christmas period. This evening then, after getting home from work quite late I have been able to spend some time with a CD that I have been playing quite a bit since I was generously given it at the weekend. Sometimes its nice to write about a disc quite early, even when the backlog is still quite daunting, and so tonight a few words about the new disc by Ernesto Rodrigues, (viola) Neil Davidson (acoustic guitar) and Wade Matthews (digital synthesis and manipulated field recordings), a CD on the Creative Sources label named Erosions. Caveats out of the way first then- I have worked on a CD with Davidson recently, consider him a good friend and was handed this release while at a concert he organised in Glasgow last weekend. So take all of that into account as you read etc….

Erosions then, (great name for the album by the way) consists of five shortish studio improvisations recorded in Summer 2010. These pieces are, if simply described, great examples of good improvised electroacoustic music recorded by thoughtful, creative people. They are nothing more than this, nothing less. As I have written countless times before, you don’t always have to rewrite the rulebooks to make strong music. You also don’t have to have sold hundreds of records before or be the name that everyone is discussing. Because of the label it is released on, Erosions will doubtlessly be overlooked and/or written off without being listened to. This is a shame as its a really good listen.

The album is a busy, abrasive affair, but of the laminal, textural kind rather than any form of jazz related call and response. Sounds wrench into life and then scorch line across the sounds surrounding them. This isn’t a noisy album as such when considered in the greater scheme of things, but it does have a fiery, jagged edge to it. Davidson’s guitar is acoustic bar the use of eBows, but is recorded up close so that every knock and scratch is amplified, its presence in the music driving the music on into almost aggressive territory. Matthews’ laptop sounds very from ringing tones through to synthesised warbles and squelches, but they are used very nicely, never sounding out of place or too artificial alongside the two acoustic stringed instruments. The field recordings apparently manipulated here are also taken so far out of context that they are unidentifiable from the synthetically created sounds. Rodrigues’ vila in perhaps the most understated of the three parts, preferring to add subtle touches between the other two for much of the time, though equally close-miked there are occasions when it also comes right to the fore.

In his liner notes, Matthews compares the act of natural erosion to the processes involved in making the music as sounds are stripped away, new ones appearing, others altered by new surfaces running across them. These are nice analogies for the music, which has an organic, roughly hewn feel to it, and therefore makes a great disc to delve deep into, poke your ears into every nook and cranny, ride along on the crest of the momentum as everything comes crashing down. The pleasure comes from the interplay between the textural events, how one set of sounds is altered dramatically by the next cutting into it, how one detailed texture is coloured by a new layer of sound sprinkled across it. Following the music through its twists and turns, but also listening vertically down into it is a thoroughly rewarding experience to these ears, and one done best at a reasonable volume.

So a nicely balanced set of recordings that edges on the grainy, gritty side but still has a soft layer folded through it all pieced together with impeccable timing, Erosions is an album by a great trio that I like quite a bit and am very pleased to recommend. My favourite release of 2011 so far. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

Le trio Ernesto RODRIGUES (violon), Neil DAVIDSON (guitare acoustique) et Wade MATTHEWS (synthèse numérique et Field recordings) explore les fonds de l'improvisation collective électroacoustique pour en faire remonter à la surface les sonorités les plus radicales de leurs instruments et dispositifs. Une véritable introspection au plus profond de l'instrument, dans une recherche de la sonorité la plus lointaine. Un vrai travail de fourmi au nom de l'improvisation horizontale, faite de micro-événements, d'accidents qui parfois sont le postulat de départ de quelques titres, comme sur le premier (s/t). L'usage tourbillonnant de la synthèse numérique (dispositif de deux ordinateurs) répond aux ritournelles mécaniques de la guitare acoustique et du violon, et se faufile très bien dans le paysage des cordes frottées, des sons étirés à l'archet, acoustique ou électronique. Si le disque attaque fort d'entrée, les plages suivantes sont ultra-minimales et plutôt menées par l'acoustique des instruments à cordes, pour finalement venir provoquer le numérique dans une certaine rivalité qui se faisait un peu attendre. Vraiment pour les fans du genre.

Cyrille Lanoë (Revue & Corrigée)

Séance d’improvisation libre en studio enregistrée en mars 2010 à Madrid, dans le studio de Wade Matthews, ici aux enregistrements de terrain traités et à la synthèse numérique (c’est nouveau, je le connaissais antérieurement comme instrumentiste acoustique). Rodrigues et Davidson jouent de leurs instruments habituels (respectivement l’alto et la guitare acoustique), en leur appliquant des techniques forts inusitées, soit, mais auxquelles ils nous ont habitué par le passé. Erosions est une excellente rencontre d’improvisation: abstraite mais fluide, délicate mais jamais doucereuse, pleines d’interrogations (les chuintements de Rodrigues se fondent dans les sons ambiants de Matthews). Un autre disque qui démontre: a) l’intérêt de la démarche de Rodrigues et; b) son flair lorsque vient le temps d’assembler des groupes. Recommandé François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

I enjoyed a lot the page of artistic diary intended to say something about this project by one of the involved musician - arguably the one whose sound art is more audible here -, Wade Matthews, who got inspiration for entitling a session recorded in March 2010 with the skilled Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Neil Davidson on acoustic guitar from a message sent by the photographer caring the artwork of this release, Mary Petrosky (is it fun a photographer with such a surname, as "petra" Latin root means "stone", likes taking pictures of rocks! It's really cool the one on the cover, looking like to a sort of scratched liver...), titled "Rocks I've met". Maybe he was influenced by the sweltering day occured in July 2010 in Madrid, as Wade himself admits, but he made a bizarre association between the general flow of the sound of this issue, whereas an important role has been played by the astonishing manipulations on field recordings (you'll have the sensation of being in his cool studio where any object, even his ringing phone, plays a role in this nice recording...a process which could remind the role of the notorious Stockhausen's dog!) and digitally synthesized creatures (some of them look like signals grabbed from ether or astronomic capturing system to be honest...) while guitar chords and viola sketches are just put in appearance here and there, and the erosive action of water on rockets. "At first glance", Mr Matthews argues, "water seems to adapt to the form of its container, and yet, over time, the opposite occurs. [...] As it flows, water erodes its container, wearing away the hardest of surfaces to reveal what is beneath. Extending our metaphor, we could say that sound flows from the actions of musicians, and among listeners. As such, it erodes both. But it also polishes both, and most of all, it reveals both". Is Erosions going to reveal something according the conceptualization by Matthers, acting in keeping with improv music principles? It's up to the listener... Vito Camarretta (Chain DLK)

Le violon d'Ernesto Rodrigues s'exprime de mille et une façons. Prenons cet archet qui patiente ou cette corde pincée. Ou encore ces silences qui chassent à chaque fois la note à laquelle succèdent en l'étouffant de tous leurs charmes.

Mais le violon d'Ernesto Rodrigues est rarement seulement violon. Sur Erosions, ce sont aussi des électro-objets fappés, traînés à terre, ramassés pour être renvoyés plus loin et des fields recordings (le tout inventé en direct par Wade Matthews) et des vibrations d'autres cordes (la guitare de Neil Davidson). Le tout est une somme de sédiments de réel.

La musique du trio s'exprime en improvisant dans l'agrément (le violon instrument classique abordé bizarrement mais instrument classique pour toujours) et le désagrément (les objets et les field recordings et les cordes tendues). Elle raconte autant de souvenirs-mélodies qu'elle prédit l'avenir d'une musique qui ne sera plus jamais. Pierre Cécile (Le Son du Grisli)

"Erosions" is a 2010 date with Rodrigues' viola accompanied by Wade Matthews' electronics and field recordings and Neil Davidson's rumbling acoustic guitar. Interestingly, I have the sense that, although the sounds here are quite full and active, the music is informed by quieter, more contemplative approaches heard or taken in the interim which have imparted a rich, breathing quality to the work, a sense of pacing and breathing that wasn't as prominent earlier (again, going from a meager number of samples but also of what I know of Rodrigues' prior catalog). I wasn't crazy about a previous Davidson solo effort but he fits in just fine here. In fact, the trio gels really nicely, creating a churning sound-world, with hints of drone, that results in one of the better recordings I've encountered from Rodrigues, well worth hearing.

Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

Improvised music has so many intuitive ways to go through which you cannot really predict. With this cd I got a feeling that the more I listen to it the more it becomes a sort of geological process about the imprinting the traces of the notes and phases the musicians are transposing.

Lost trace is the best thing that can ocur to you, once you have forgotten about it, a time comes that it flashbacks into Your memory and erodes it with the lines it embellishes and carves in your perception process.

The way with such kind of music is reinventing the peripheral perception process into some new tracks - it is getting out of your ego and getting back to the shape that seems to be the void but sheer utterance of that kind is merely a slight misunderstanding: You won't get any tunnel vision on this one...try it!!! Hubert Napiorski (Felthat Reviews)

Erosions est une autre rencontre inattendue et surprenante où trois musiciens assez différents tentent également d'établir un dialogue. Il s'agit cette fois d'Ernesto Rodrigues (violon alto), Neil Davidson (guitare acoustique) et Wade Matthews (synthèse digitale et manipulation de field-recordings). Trois musiciens qui ne jouent pas forcément sur les mêmes terrains, sur les mêmes esthétiques et méthodes d'improvisation, mais qui s'efforcent tout de même de créer ici une improvisation collective.

Ils s'y efforcent, et ils y arrivent - c'est même, pour ce qui est des enregistrements de Rodrigues et Davidson, un de mes disques préférés (d'ailleurs, j'avais déjà beaucoup aimé leur précédente collaboration intitulée fower). Cinq improvisations assez calmes et lentes, interactives et symbiotiques. Les textures sont originales et s'agencent de manière parfois symbiotiques, parfois opposées. Wade Matthews est certainement le plus étonnant des trois avec des enregistrements de trains transformés en fréquences granuleuses, des sinusoïdes impromptues et des souffles oniriques, les matières sonores qu'il produit sont franchement inventives et singulières, et il parvient à constamment surprendre et déjouer les attentes. Plus solidaires entre eux, du fait de leurs instruments à cordes et acoustiques, Neil Davidson et Ernesto Rodrigues semblent aller de pair - même si ce n'est pas toujours le cas. Une utilisation souvent détournée et/ou préparée des instruments, allant de l'insertion d'objets entre les cordes, à l'utilisation d'archet sur la guitare, en passant par les techniques étendues habituelles de col legno (frottement avec le bois de l'archet) et sul ponticello (frottement du chevalet), et je suis loin d'être exhaustif. Chaque émission de son est une invitation aux réponses, réponses qui s'intègrent ou s'opposent à la proposition initiale. Et du fait de cette interaction, la musique proposée durant ces cinq improvisations est plutôt variée et diversifiée, une musique qui est parfois calme et énigmatique, parfois forte et abrasive, proche à certains moments de l'eai, proche à d'autres moments du réductionnisme ou de l'improvisation libre non-idiomatique.

Mais tout au long de ce disque, ce sont des propositions fortes et des réponses justes. Une musique qui se renouvelle à chaque seconde et maintient constamment l'auditeur en haleine. Créatives, inventives, originales donc, mais aussi denses et riches, voici cinq erosions conseillées. Julien Héraud (ImprovSpheres)

The trio of violist and label leader Ernesto Rodrigues with acoustic guitarist Neil Davidson and sythn/field recording artist Wade Matthews in erosive, sinister and engrossing improv. (Squidco)

Wounds of Light

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS178, Lisbon 2010

Light? There’s never been any lightness to the Rodrigueses’ playing. Physically, there’s often a lot of pressure applied with the bow; intellectually, their music is consistently ripe with thought and pregnant with meaning – aerial perhaps, but light, never. Yes, I know, it’s not lightness this title is about. It’s illumination, brilliance, luminance – all words aptly describing (in reverse order) the father-son duo’s music, this particular quartet session, and the result of experiencing both. Thought, focus, the resonance of each musician’s soul with his instrument and his colleagues: all these factors are enlightening, casting – yes – a light on the music at hand. But they don’t explain everything. How could they? How could one truly explain the magic of genuine collective improvisation? The act of performing as one yet as separate personalities? The feat of achieving cohesion without resorting to predictability? The incredible level of “telepathy/synergy/complementarity” between Ernesto, Guilherme, David, and Nuno? The uncanny way this quartet lays out and articulates sounds so that the listener may feel like a participant, someone as accountable for the success of the recording as the musicians involved? In following the Rodrigueses’ adventures through the catalogue of the Creative Sources label, I have often tried to explain all this and know that I am doomed to fail, always. Light, therefore. There shall be light as you listen to this CD. But the music itself is far from sunny. It has its dark corners, its shadows, its pitch-black Lovecraftian recesses – moreso than most of the recordings involving the Rodrigueses, and especially in the second piece, where a sense of impending doom (un)resolves in a very strange way. An ironic use of the word “light”, then? Perhaps, although in this case, that which is absent (light) could hurt your eyes if it were used maliciously. Speaking of maliciousness, David Stackenäs – the X factor in this aligment – is maliciously playing the agent provocateur part; his acoustic guitar work, gritty, grating, highly experimental and unique, sits wonderfully well between the tensed-up textures of the Rodrigueses’ stringwork and the quiet, inner-reaching tones from Nuno Torres’ saxophone. But does it hurt, this wound? Revelations always hurt – at least a bit – our preconceived ideas, if nothing else. And that might happen to you, especially around the nine-minute mark in the third piece, when Stackenäs chooses the path of most resistance, triggering the most unruly moment of the album. That’s when a lightbulb might come on in the heads of the most blasé of listeners: “Oh my, they’re having fun too!” If you’re all stuck up about non-idiomatic improvisation, that kind of enlightenment could leave a mark! François Couture

1. 12’47’’ – 12’47’’

2. 11’29’’ – 11’29’’

3. 14’28’’ – 14’28’’

Ernesto Rodrigues – Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues – Cello

Nuno Torres – Alto Saxophone

David Stackenäs - Acoustic Guitar

Recorded in October 2008, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos
Photography Daria Gabriel

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/wounds-of-light


Reviews
[...] Por sua vez, "Wounds of light" tem em David Stackenas o "joker" com a missao de manter instaveis os equillbrios que se vao construindo, abrindo feridas na superfície do silencio e lançando sombras sobre o que se ilumina. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)
I haven’t written about this CD when it came out, because I had been asked to write liner notes for it. But why shoudln’t I praise its ultra-quiet and surgically-precise form of free improvisation, with subtle yet gritty plays of textures? The Rodrigues father-and-son team delivers another bewitching performance. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)
For some mysterious reason, the first six minutes of this recording call those unwelcome awakenings begun with vexing headaches or those terribly sickening hangovers to mind and you could imagine why all the following mental images by such a listening could have been influenced by this first impression so that I could link the six minutes left over to nothing but the effect of an analgesic pill! ...and you'll understand why the harsch viola by Ernesto Rodrigues, that sort of gumbling and snoring by other sonic objects, the metallic scratching and the obstinate sawing by Guilherme Rodrigues' cello, the steady reverberating by David Stackenas'e-bows and Nuno Torres' alto saxophone of the second track could be linked to the interference in such an anguishing state of mind by some coercive "needs" as well as the third 15-minutes lasting track could be considered as the difficult attempt of rebalancing or recovering from such a condition or maybe it could just be the attempt of finding some relief out...finally! The description of an ordinary day which isn't deserving of some lines in a personal diary at all. I could be more assertive and even show off some learning by trying a comparison of the title of this improvisational issue with the notorious sentence by William Blake according to which "colours are wounds of light", but I prefer to keep my feet on the ground today! Just enjoy this listening in accorrdance of your situation or your speculative knowledge...it's up to you! Vito Camarretta (Chain DLK)

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La combinaison instrumentale exploitée par cette formation, enregistrée en octobre 2008, est d’une élégante richesse : en une quarantaine de minutes et comme dans un atelier, la belle ingénierie (guitare, alto, violoncelle, saxophone alto) met en branle longerons, rabots, scies lentes, avec une vraie science des dosages et du brouillage des sources – qui peut évoquer, mutatis mutandis, certains travaux de Polwechsel. Un confort rêche, avec ce qu’il faut d’échardes pour rester sur le qui-vive… Guillaume Tarche (Le Son du Grisli)

Publiée il y a environ deux ans, Wounds of Light est une série de trois improvisations pour instruments acoustiques. On y retrouve Ernesto Rodrigues et son fils Guilherme - respectivement à l'alto et au violoncelle, ainsi que Nuno Torres au saxophone alto et le guitariste suédois David Stackenäs. Comme le dit déjà François Couture dans les notes, cet album ravira certainement beaucoup des amateurs d'improvisation non-idiomatique. Car il s'agit ici avant tout d'improvisations abstraites et principalement concentrées sur le son lui-même. Le quartet s'évertue et s'amuse à multiplier des strates sonores indiscernables à partir de cordes longuement frottées et de notes statiques. Il ne s'agit pas non plus d'une forme de drone acoustique, car des milliers de micro-évolutions parcourent les strates. Des évènements parfois microscopiques fourmillent. Des micro-évènements qui forment des angles, donnent de la forme et du relief aux longues plages sonores abrasives. Servies par quatre instrumentistes virtuoses, ces trois improvisations plongent l'auditeur dans des territoires sonores abstraits, singuliers et créatifs. Un univers où bois et cordes sont raclés, durement frottés et avec lenteur; des sons qui crispent parfois mais qui ne sont pas vraiment désagréable tant la forme et l'interaction entre les musiciens semblent magiques et inventives. Trois plongées sonores dans l'univers du timbre et des micro-évolutions, trois plongées qui progressent avec calme et nous entraînent dans des atmosphères hors du commun, méticuleusement interprétées. Julien Héraud (ImprovSphere)

Tense textures and shadowy interplay brought to 'light' from the quartet of father/son Rodrigues, guitarist David Stackenas, and saxophonist Nuno Torres; remarkably subtle sonic improvisation. (Squidco)