Ornithorhynchus anatinus

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS416, Lisbon 2017

1. I - 29'44''
2. II - 10'03''
3. III - 20'16''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Maria do Mar - Violin

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello
Miguel Mira - Double Bass

Andre Hencleeday - Tenor Psaltery

Miguel Almeida - Classical Guitar

Maria Radich - Voice

Paulo Curado - Flute
Paulo Chagas - Oboe

Bruno Parrinha - Soprano & Bass Clarinet
Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone
Fernando Simões - Trumpet
Eduardo Chagas - Trombone
Abdul Moimême - Electric Guitar

Carlos Santos - Electronics

Monsieur Trinité - Percussion

Recorded in December 2016, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/ornithorhynchus-anatinus

Reviews

São também dois os álbuns saídos recentemente do projecto IKB (iniciais de Ives Klein Blue), “Ornithorhynchus Anatinus” e “Chelonoidis Nigra”. A primeira diferença relativamente à VGO está no menor número de participantes, 16 em ambos, se bem que com algumas alterações de nomes e de instrumentação. Há outras, destacando-se o propósito de que os instrumentos acústicos sejam tocados como se fossem electrónicos, por meio de uma sistemática utilização de técnicas extensivas e até de recursos próprios da electroacústica, como a manutenção de “drones”. Há um ainda maior minimalismo na geração de materiais, conduzindo à articulação de transparências, com o silêncio a ganhar propriedades musicais. Ouvimos os sons nascerem, viverem e morrerem com um pormenor assombroso, mesmo que, de novo, seja difícil discernir a sua origem. Dos dois títulos, “Ornithorhynchus Anatines” será, talvez, o mais camerístico, muito devido à associação de um oboé (Paulo Chagas) à flauta de Paulo Curado e aos clarinetes de José Bruno Parrinha, bem como às presenças de uma guitarra clássica (Miguel Almeida), de um saltério (André Hencleeday) e de um percussionista extra (Nuno Morão). Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

Portugal's IKB Ensemble is an electracoustic improvising ensemble with a strong string and wind section, balanced with electric guitar, electronics, and percussion, each album focusing on an object--an art work, Dracaena Draco (Dragon Tree), Chelonoidis Nigra (Giant Tortoise)--and here taking on the Ornithorhynchus Anatinus, or platypus, in 3 fascinating movements. (Squidco)

One of the most amazing Lisboa's specialities are extended ensembles such as IKB Ensemble that made the first release of Creative Sources in 2012, and until the Covid19 era recorded 9 albums. Unfortunately, the seven early ones are missing in my collection, but I report here

on the last four. The titles of all albums correspond to Latin names of "exotic" and strange animals.

Due to courtesy of Ernesto and Guilherme, I got in the middle of the covid-era a gift packet with maybe ten recent albums of the family, and in particular tow earlier records of the IKB Ensemble: "Ornithorhynchus anatinus" and "Apteryx Mantelli". The first one is a masterpiece, recorded in Galeria Monumental in Lisbon. It contains over an hour of music, but only one track: a suite "Ornithorhynchus anatinus" in three parts. The main idea of this music is to combine the abstract, alternative or even fake sounds of strings with electronics

and reed. The end effect is a monumental spacial sound that I could associate with XXIst century response to György Ligeti's cosmic music, contemporary string music of Giacinto Scelsi or Helmut Lachenmann, or Evan Parker Electro-Acoustic Ensemble. After 30 minutes of the "Part I", a 10 minutes long "Part II" provides an excursion toward the lands of free improvised minimal music, with long tones and repetitive phrases. In the final the mood

changes and includes plenty of fragmented rhythmic patterns generated by... who knows which instruments? Finally, the magisterial "Part III" combining dialectically the thesis of "Part I" with anti-thesis of "Part II", into a synthesis. 20 minutes of absolute delight and nirvana. Maciej Lewenstein

Urze

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS426, Lisbon 2017

1. Urze - 48'23''

DICEROS

Ernesto Rodrigues - Harp, Zither, Dulcimer & Rebec

Andre Hencleeday - Piano & Psaltery

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello & Pocket Trumpet

Flak - Acoustic Guitar

Paulo Curado - Flute

Bruno Parrinha - Soprano, Alto & Bass Clarinet

Ricardo Guerreiro - Computer

Carlos Godinho - Percussion

Recorded in January 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

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

Reviews

Diceros, a mais recente formação de Ernesto Rodrigues, surge igualmente com o formato de octeto decidida para “Porto Covo”, mas com objectivos menos programáticos e com colaboradores da VGO e do IKB que habitualmente não encontramos no Suspensão. Em “Urze”, o violetista surge, inclusive, com outras ferramentas, designadamente harpa (repetindo a escolha de “Quasar”), cítara, dulcimer e rabeca. Há, de qualquer modo, algo que se transfere do Suspensão (os “drones”) e deparamo-nos com versões de algumas particularidades das bandas mais largas (as oposições, por exemplo), como se esta fosse um “redux” daquelas. Aliás, o substantivo Diceros e a imagem do rinoceronte na capa remetem-nos para a “cover art” do IKB, criada, à semelhança da generalidade das edições da Creative Sources, por um dos mais fiéis parceiros de Rodrigues, Carlos Santos – que desta feita não toca. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

An extended improvisation of mostly quiet, occasionally cantankerous, but always intriguing free music, primarily acoustic playing with a strong cast of string players, plus reeds, keys, and computer, creating suspenseful music of great tension and impressive restraint as the sound evolves in gradations and facets of sound. (Squidco)

Kletka

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS428, Lisbon 2017

1. Kletka I - 26'40''
2. Kletka II - 07'26''

Ilia Belorukov - Alto Saxophone

Kurt Liedwart - Electronics

Abdul Moimême - Electric Guitar

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Recorded in March 2016, Parede

Cover design Ilia Belorukov

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

Reviews

Recorded live in 2016 (though any ancillary or crowd noise seems to have been edited out in post-production), this quartet of world-weary improvisors came together to let loose upon their unsuspecting onlookers two performances of roughly twenty-six and seven minutes plus, and simultaneously beg any number of pertinent questions. How has this form of sonic communication/sound art evolved? Should it indeed 'evolve'? Is the very nature of this particular 'style' content with often being mere genre music? Is it 'music' at all? And aside from the few who bore witness to this live exhibition, what do the majority of us come away with, not being able to attend the gig in person, after experiencing it at home sans the visual/environmental accoutrements?
Listening to this in the comfort of one's own headspace, perhaps it is the last question that truly defines both this recording and the genre at large. Let's face it: veritable mountains of plastic have been forged these last few decades alone to initialize the vast catalog of EAI that props up shelves across the globe, and labels such as Creative Sources have been instrumental in moving such mountains. Yet there's a lack of elasticity to albums like Kletka that have not held the idiom in good stead. True, the players on hand are no slouches: Belorukov can hold his own amongst any number of competing preparatory saxophonists of his generation; Liedwart's facility with the generative software ppooll is acute and quite well-known; newcomer Moimeme can massage his frets and objects in the best post-Rowe tradition; and label honcho Rodrigues ploughs a seemingly limitless furrow of ideas from his hoary and twisted viola strings. (Not that each individual's contributions are easy to discern in the resultant morass; the collective's approach is ever-subservient to the whole.) The sounds erected by the quartet check all the right boxes: it's all tensile, tense, textural. But the collage of noisemakers often lose the plot, the random sounds only intermittently coalesce, and what emerges is often problematic within the 'squeaky improv' these four mine: liminal, lowercase happenstances that amount to little more than episodic charges untethered to any kind of central idea. It's all presentation, and taken out of the live context, doesn't amount to the most visceral of half-hours.

It must be emphasized that the performers involved demonstrate an obvious alacrity with their chosen instruments; how they choose to use them, and what results during the execution, remains the sole yardstick against which the listener measures. Kletka is surely competent, but its pedestrian design scheme seems too by-the-numbers, redolent of so many like-sounding gatherings past it's very efficacy is called into question. Not necessarily the evolution one aspires to. Darren Bergstein (The Squid’s Ear)

Creative Sources regulars Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Abdul Moimeme on electric guitar join the long-running duo of alto saxophonist Ilia Belorukov and electronics artist and Mikroton label-leader Kurt Liedwart to record these two lowercase electroacoustic improvisations, transmuting acoustic and electronic sound in both stark and subdued ways. (Squidco)

Porto Covo

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS418, Lisbon 2017

1. Suspensão X - 31'47''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Miguel Mira - Double Bass

Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone

Eduardo Chagas - Trombone

António Chaparreiro - Electric Guitar

Carlos Santos - Computer

Nuno Morão - Percussion

Recorded in November 2015, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/porto-covo

Reviews

“Théatron” e “Porto Covo” adaptam a fórmula para os elencos de 11 e oito elementos, respectivamente, que se apresentam como Suspensão. O mote está no nome, pois o foco vai para os tratamentos sustenidos ou suspensivos das notas. Ou melhor, para a produção de bordões (“drones”), ainda que sempre contrariados pela introdução no decorrer dos mesmos, regra geral de modo discreto, de pontilhismos – implicando que o grupo se constitua como a soma de dois. Um tem como função transportar-nos quase inconscientemente numa viagem, criando uma horizontalidade dirigida ao infinito, enquanto o outro nos desvia a audição activa para os detalhes, embora nunca determinando posições fixas para os músicos. Assim como a música muda sem que, à superfície, nada pareça acontecer, mudam também os papéis de quem a executa. Tensão e quietude conjugam-se de formas inusitadas, uma minando a outra. Deixamo-nos ir, mas nunca com uma sensação de conforto. Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)

I also want to mention Rodrigues's newest Suspensão album, Porto Covo, which is labeled X. It was recorded November 2015 in Lisbon, and evokes an idyllic coastal scene. Suspensão IX, Théatron was actually recorded later (last April), and at least as of this writing, was available on Rodrigues's Soundcloud site, as well as physically from Creative Sources. (I had mentioned the previous installment, Jadis la pluie était bleue, here in April 2015.) The electronics on X make the sense of relaxation seem a little forced to me, but it's still an atmospheric & sophisticated octet interaction, perhaps vaguely reminiscent of e.g. Dixon's Tapestries. (Moving to a smaller, more minimal ensemble, Earth Tongues seems to be seeking a similar sense of repose via landscape.) There always seems to be more from Rodrigues. I don't know how he keeps up the pace. 13 March 2017. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts