Tellurium

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS500, Lisbon 2018

1. Tellurium - 33'49''

STRING THEORY

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Maria do Mar - Violin
Filipe Murat - Violin
Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello
Miguel Mira - Cello
Yu Lin Humm - Cello
Ulrich Mitzlaff - Cello
Helena Espvall - Cello
Gianna de Toni - Double Bass
João Madeira - Double Bass
Hernâni Faustino - Double Bass
Marc Ramírez - Double Bass
Miguel Almeida - Classical Guitar
Abdul Moimême - 12 String Acoustic Guitar
Andre Hencleeday - Zither, Psaltery
Rodrigo Pinheiro - Piano

Recorded November 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

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

Reviews

Although it's obvious that I haven't been focusing on larger ensembles here, that becomes particularly relevant with someone like Ernesto Rodrigues, who releases so many larger ensemble albums. (And of course Rodrigues's discography is huge in general, with many albums employing smaller forces.) I do want to mention the recent Tellurium, though, both for the music itself & for a couple of formal reasons: First, Tellurium is numbered 500 on Creative Sources, so something of a milestone, and seemed to be released individually for that reason. And I do want to honor the label that is releasing the greatest volume of interesting material (at least to me) right now. Second, Tellurium is in Rodrigues's "String Theory" series, and I've noted other such items: The first String Theory album was Gravity by an ensemble of 17 musicians, so the 16 musicians on Tellurium actually mark a return to those roots, but I had personally taken notice with the quartet album Xenon (discussed here May 2017) & then the somewhat larger Heptaphonies (discussed July 2017). (Tellurium also seems to relate to a mixed "Isotope Ensemble" that has a forthcoming release, Barium. Indeed it's related to various larger ensembles, as Tellurium was recorded at CreativeFest #11 last November, which produced Rodrigues-led albums by IKB, Variable Geometry Orchestra & Suspensão too.) Tellurium is generally a restrained album, as one has come to expect from Rodrigues, with various activity in waves, sometimes highlighting more the tinkling of piano or zither, but more often bathed in string harmonics... later into pizzicato. There is a tangible classical feel, particularly evoking music by Xenakis, the mathematization of which implies an impersonal quality that is also felt here. It's almost timeless or epic, though, in a way that Xenakis never quite managed — maybe even panoramic in the sense of distance interrogated through its sometimes ethereal mood. Although it takes barely over half an hour, Tellurium is thus a stimulating journey. I suppose I should also make a few remarks on why I haven't been prioritizing larger ensemble albums such as this: When it comes to a system dynamics perspective, a trio already obliges musicians to think beyond a single dualism (although that thinking might still involve only duals) — and those interactions can readily be extended via "partial objects," smaller figurations allowing multiple interactions, or different interactions among different physical components, such as individual strings. Larger ensembles obviously present more such combinations for interaction, and on Tellurium, even a (naïve) permutation approach suggests a very large number indeed. Yet, when it comes to the world, rather than the laboratory of a musical performance, the number of possible interactions is not nearly high enough. So yes, I am actually saying that large ensembles are not large enough! Moreover, this is no simple matter of adding more musicians, at least via recorded media, because of the limits of hearing & distinguishing. In my opinion, making the most of larger forces requires something other than a traditional audience setting or recording, i.e. it requires something like a "sound installation" approach that allows the listener to move around physically amid or within (if we are to assert boundedness) a differential sonic space. All that said, I do find Tellurium to be a rather enjoyable tapestry. So what do the next 500 albums hold for Creative Sources (especially if I may dare to believe that Ernest Rodrigues will maintain his current, astonishing creative pace)? [...] 25 May 2018. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

This supergroup of strings--16 musicians on violins, viola, cellos, double basses, piano, psaltery, zither, and guitar--in an intensely restrained collective improvisation recorded live at O'Culto da Ajuda, Lisbon, Portugal in 2017, as String Theory's 4th album continues their title themes from the physical universe named here for the rare metalloid "Tellurium". (Squidco)

Crane Cries

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS503, Lisbon 2018

1. Forming a Flock - 06'26''

2. Long Distance Migration - 18'35''

3. Mudcovered Feathers Camouflage - 08'20''

4. Threat-Fight-Calming - 06'30''

5. Ritual Dance - 05'06''

6. Colonizing of Wetland - 08'16''

7. Rural Noises Accepted - 06'31''

8. Nest-Breed-Rest-Feed - 10'30''

Elo Masing - Violin 

Dietrich Petzold - Violin, Viola

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Recorded October 2017, Berlin

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/crane-cries

Reviews

I was wrapped up with another project, so it's taken a little longer to focus on Crane Cries, an improvised string quartet album from Creative Sources featuring Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues together with Elo Masing (b.1984, Estonia) & Dietrich Petzold (b.1954) on violins (& sometimes viola for the latter). I was not familiar with Masing, who has some compositions available online, but Petzold had appeared with the Rodrigueses already on Sacred Noise (a double album recorded in October 2016): That album generally features much smoother textures within a quieter, more often minimalist, vibe (with the second disc having been recorded in a church). Crane Cries, recorded in Berlin last October, is also a very long album (over seventy minutes), and considering that Petzold not only switches instruments (& he also plays a variety of instruments, beyond violin, on Sacred Noise), but recorded & mastered the album, this might be his project as "second violin." However, obviously Ernesto Rodrigues has been involved in an extensive series of improvising string projects — although not previously a classical string quartet per se, at least to my knowledge — and Masing seems to be making a significant debut here. (She also appeared on last year's recording of Cornelius Cardew's Treatise by a London improvising ensemble.) Although the variety & density of string figures & exchanges create a rather different feel from some of the smoother or otherwise more minimal albums from Rodrigues, such a style is not unprecedented: In some ways, Crane Cries seems like a continuation of the Lisbon String Trio series (from earlier in 2017), although there is no bass & the cellist is different too. Perhaps then it's more simply a continuation of the stream of various Rodrigues albums featuring multiple bowed strings in general.... (One might even compare to e.g. The Afterlife of Trees, discussed here in December, where the Rodrigueses join a different sort of Berlin string duo, also including violin, to form a quartet. The music there is rather less contrapuntal, however.) In any case, a turn to such a classic quartet configuration — albeit with Petzold sometimes switching to viola, and so doubling the middle ranges (as is so often the case on recent Rodrigues albums), even as the cello is here the low end instead of the middle (as it likewise has been so often for Rodrigues, and for that matter, various tenor-oriented counterpoints) — is surely notable. Regarding density (& e.g. the previous entry), it's also difficult to know exactly what was planned or understood prior to the performance, but the quartet does tend to keep to a typical twentieth century string quartet density throughout most tracks — and the departures are also seemingly intentional invocations of style. Whose crane idea was it? That's a tangible question (and perhaps Masing — yet another violinist to appear on a Rodrigues album — is the answer). And whoever it is, are the titles retrospective or was the theme planned? (Do the titles form a narrative?) I tend to think that each track indeed involves the sounds of living crane activity (i.e. is at least inspired by it), and so there must have been some planning or coordination. How much of the detail actually derives from cranes? Not all of it, obviously, since there are romantic harmonies & other traditional string figures. (There is no shortage of variety in this regard.) So perhaps this is something like Messiaen's bird pieces, which involve various supplements — not to mention his particular sensibility when transcribing into (Western) human notation — to the harmonic & rhythmic potential of the bird songs & sounds per se, in this case focusing on one species (or actually, at least according to the title, family). The result is technically sophisticated, including a variety of harmonics, pizzicato (which are especially amazing on track five), glissandi & other pitch bending. (And note that I've long explicitly enjoyed Messiaen's birdsong pieces, so this is not a novel musical influence for me. That said, Messiaen's bird music did not involve microtonality or so much timbral detail.) There's also something of a landscape feel, particularly in the epic second track, such that a sense of distance enters into what is often a rather immanent interaction: Whereas Crane Cries evokes the natural (zoological) world explicitly (& specifically), the landscape quality & general technique might be compared e.g. to Rodrigues work on Traintracks Roadsides Wastelands Debris — (another long album) explicitly dealing with "non-nature." Similarly, Chant, featuring a string quartet of its own (plus marimba), mixes a wide variety of twentieth century (classical) string techniques with a sort of vaguely natural or "world" quality. (So if anything, such a "polarity," i.e. between classical string interactions & in this case, animal sounds, is more stark on Crane Cries. And when those poles do coalesce, it's usually in the more minimalist mode of sound exploration.) Among recent Rodrigues albums, one of the most similar is obviously K'Ampokol Che K'Aay, despite the inclusion of the clarinet: The use of classical string figures & style of counterpoint, not to mention (once again) the naturalistic & postcolonial cosmopolitan vibe, suggests a similar interaction & sometimes mood. (Crane Cries, perhaps as inspired by actual cranes, is generally more languid, however, even romantic at times.) Whereas much of the album is active — and there is a good recorded presence — it's also (as already noted) sometimes more minimalist (perhaps as a further interrogation of classical styles), including within the landscape mode. In the end, perhaps the simplest summary is that many different sound events occur over the course of these eight tracks, some of them seemingly part of a concrete (naturalist) narrative, but also including plenty of "music" per se to occupy the listening mind more generally — frankly to the point of exhaustion on first hearing. So it's quite a meaty album, albeit not particularly abstract due to its specific zoological reference point. (And as far as continuing to feature so many Creative Sources releases, I continue to especially enjoy them.... I'd be happy to have more from others provoking thoughts in me too. Meanwhile, I have to discuss what actually calls, or cries, out to me.) 25 April 2018. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Emulating the sounds and intentions of cranes through string improvisation and unusual techniques, the quartet of Estonian violinist Elo Masing, German violinist Dietrich Petzold, and Portuguese violist and cellist Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues name each of 8 tracks on the behavior of cranes, from forming a flock, migration, fighting, ritual dancing, to nesting. (Squidco)

Physis

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS496, Lisbon 2018

1. Suspensão XI - 32'56''

SUSPENSÃO

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Miguel Mira - Cello
Hernâni Faustino - Double Bass
André Hencleeday - Psaltery, Zither
Abdul Moimême - Prepared Electric Guitar
Rodrigo Pinheiro - Piano
Nuno Torres - Alto Saxophone
Eduardo Chagas - Trombone
Carlos Santos - Electronics

Nuno Morão - Percussion

Recorded November 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

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

Reviews

The third album on Creative Sources for this 10-piece ensemble with 5 string players, piano, sax, trombone, electronics and percussion, freely improvising in an extended work themed for the Greek theological, philosophical, and scientific term typically translated as nature or physics, in a rich tapestry of meticulous detail and profoundly subtle communication. (Squidco)

Synchronous Rotation

CD – Creative Sources Recordings – CS499, Lisbon 2018

1. Synchronous Rotation - 27'32''

Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola 

Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello

Gianna de Toni - Double Bass

Vasco Trilla - Percussion

Recorded November 2017, Lisbon

Cover design Carlos Santos

https://ernestorodrigues.bandcamp.com/album/synchronous-rotation

Reviews

"Synchronous Rotation" contains only one track of the same title, lasting 27 minutes. For me it is a crowning of the series. It is to some extend a more radical record, with the ensemble reduced to a quartet.
It was recorded live at O'Culto da Ajuda, in Lisbon during the CreativeFest#11. In a sense this is the same concept as the one used on "Blattwerk" and "Zweige", but distilled to a situation in which the sound of each instrument can be identi ed and heard individually. The music again is sileny and tranquila, yet full of emotions, sensitivity, and simply intrinsic beauty. The are more albums on the avantgarde scene combining strings with avantgarde free improvised music (such as several albums of Agustí Fernández), but the series of Vasco with the Rodrigues family clealry belong to the most interesting and artistically most challenging ones. It is very original in fact if it reminds me stylistically of anything, then of the spectral string music of Gérard Grisey and of the musique concrète instrumentale of Helmut Lachenmann. Unbelievably beautiful stuff!!! Maciej Lewenstein

Muzyka wstaje z ciszy, dobiega z głuchej przestrzeni. Słuchać szelest kroków, ktoś oddycha. Struny pełne bojaźni i drżenia, w egzystencjalnym zawieszeniu. Koncertowe królestwo, pełne skupienia i umiaru. Struny wchodzą w delikatne interakcje, ledwie muskane smykami, lekkimi jak ptasie pióra. Robaczki tańczą w ołowianych miseczkach (Trilla!). Kameralistyka owdowiałych przedmieść Lizbony. Odrobina klasycznych pasaży, konfrontowana przez bystre interakcje rzeczywistości ciągłej improwizacji. Być może jesteśmy bliżej bramy do filharmonii, ale kwaśny odczyn dźwięku determinuje nasz sceptycyzm wobec wejścia do środka. Jakby na potwierdzenie przypuszczeń recenzenta - 8 minuta i pierwsze próby sonorystycznych zadziorów na gryfach i krawędziach werbla i tomów. Wsparcie drummingowe, to nie jest zły pomysł. Niepokój rytmu pozorowanego. Smyki podśpiewują molowe pieśni. Niekoniecznie żałobne, może bardziej wielkopostne. Tuż potem zejście w głąb czarnej ziemi. Zdaje się, że to Ernesto ma w dłoniach pochodnię i oświetla drogę wędrowcom. Pięknie snuta opowieść, bez puenty, z pokładami lirycznych metafor na gryfie altówki. Reszta partnerów komentuje i wpada w drobną egzaltację. 14 minuta, dronowy czteroślad! Jakże uroczy pasaż! Jakże te instrumenty oddychają i szeleszczą. Drżą! Akustyczny meta byt! Głaskają się z ciszą! Po uszy w ciszy, tu gdzie każdy dźwięk stanowić może krwawą rewolucję (także ze strony widowni)! 20 minuta, Trilla bierze opowieść na swój warsztat – dzwoni i rezonuje. Obok drobne turbulencje na strunach. Wejście w kameralny barok, może nawet ckliwy romantyzm. Ale wszystko może liczyć na cięty kontrapunkt drummera! Narracja rośnie w siłę, a tempo przemian dyktuje Katalończyk. Rusza armia wibratorów! Strunowce z otwartymi ustami łapią głęboki oddech. Ostrzą sobie ząbki na finał! Szczypta klasycznej retoryki ze strony wiolonczeli, na pozostałych strunach szmer molowej zadumy. Jakże ciekawy dysonans akustyczny. Na ostatniej prostej wytryski pojedynczych dźwięków i dronowych zaśpiewów. Andrzej Nowak (Trybuna Muzyki Spontanicznej)

[...] From later in the year, and so following the Lisbon String Trio series & others, is Synchronous Rotation, recorded at CreativeFest in Lisbon in November 2017, by a quartet of Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, Gianna de Toni (double bass) & (again) Vasco Trilla. I was not familiar with de Toni, but she appears on a prior album on Creative Sources, Trees (recorded in May 2013) by a quintet including both Rodrigueses. So Synchronous Rotation forms an alternate "Lisbon String Trio" around Ernesto, bolstered once again by Trilla's imaginative percussion. It also continues the recent history of geometric cover art on Creative Sources, particularly around the String Theory series (as does, more as a hybrid, the very sparse Spiric Sections, recorded the following day, also at CreativeFest 11), and the music suggests a corresponding technical quality: Synchronous Rotation consists of one modest length (under thirty minute) track, and opens strongly, with rich counterpoint around what I might describe as post-serial thematics. It's much more forceful in its first half, evoking various string associations, but seems to become more subdued following a long, quiet interlude. (One might say that after some equivocation, minimalism decisively asserts itself, although its reign does not remain untroubled. There's even something of a spiritual, Scelsian vibe to the drone & rattle combination that arises toward the end, as distinct from the presumptively geometric evocations.) Trilla does seem more animated at times, so perhaps this is the start of him putting more of his personal vigor into these projects with Rodrigues. And perhaps the more "ethereal" results are generated as a consequence of the "rotation" (to which the title refers) — I'm not sure — but the album does fade to a close. I can't claim that either album truly distinguishes itself in the midst of Rodrigues's massive outpouring of recordings featuring himself with various other string players, but both Zweige & Synchronous Rotation present independent points of interest, documenting the ongoing development of Rodrigues's "string theory" more generally. (And the latter also includes a nice two-panel, full color photograph of the quartet in concert.) There is clearly more to explore here: I'd be keen on hearing some of the early, high energy passages of Synchronous Rotation elaborated in different directions, say. Given the pace of these releases, perhaps that's already in the works. 13 March 2018. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

A live recording at O'Culto da Ajuda, Lisbon, during the 2017 CreativeFest #11 from the quartet of Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello, Gianna de Toni on double bass, and Vasco Trilla on percussion, a sinuous, curving extended improvisation of subtle shades, with certain rotations more forceful, but always gravitating to quietude. (Squidco)