terça-feira, 2 de outubro de 2018

Autoschediasm

atrito-afeito - 010, Montréal, 2018


















1. Part 1 - 21'26''
2. Part 2 - 12'08''
3. Part 3 - 09'13''



Karoline Leblanc - Piano
Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Nicolas Caloia  - Double Bass



Recorded June 2018, Montréal
Cover design Karoline Leblanc


Reviews


Pour ceux qui suivent le violoniste alto Ernesto Rodrigues, c’est l’occasion de l’écouter dans une dimension esthétique  différente par rapport à ses enregistrements « lower case / réductionnistes » publiés sur son label Creative Sources : sa remarquable maîtrise sotto voce est illustrée ici dans le cadre d’une musique libre jouée avec plus de possibilités sonores, vitesse, énergie, etc... Au piano, la remarquable pianiste canadienne Karoline Leblanc qui dirige aussi le label atrito - afeito et à la contrebasse Nicolas Caiola, lui aussi canadien et membre insigne du trio In the Sea avec Tristan Honsinger et Josh Zubot. Commençant en puissance, la première improvisation (Part 1 21 :26) évolue vers un jeu raffiné, la pianiste intervenant dans la table d’harmonie et le contrebassiste ponctuant le trilogue d’une main sûre. Le violon alto étire les sonorités en faisant miroiter les timbres de ses frottements délicats dans un tournoiement énergique aux cadences renouvelées. Vers la quatorzième minute, le clavier se soulève et emporte les cordistes dans une sarabande animée, orchestrale qui culmine dans des grondements dans les graves. Le contrebassiste pousse le trio avec ses doigts puissants et des vibrations (charlie) hadeniennes. Un bel enchaînement. La Part 2 s’entame dans un questionnement de la matière sonore, les vibrations des cordes du piano actionnées (frappes, frottements furtifs, frictions éthérées) dans la table d’harmonie auquel répondent des timbres délicats de l’alto (viola) traité de manière ingénieuse et originale. D’un état d’apesanteur attentiste, s’échafaude une construction sonore sombre basée sur un dialogue sensible d’effets sonores maîtrisés dont les affects convergent avec une belle finesse. Par la suite, on découvre un bruitisme minimaliste et expressif (Part 3  9 :13), avec une conclusion enlevée qui renvoie à l’atmosphère animée de la Part 1. Cette expressivité est due au talent des improvisateurs qui savent faire « parler » leurs instruments dans une démarche « réductionniste ». À noter la maîtrise du toucher de la pianiste dans les cadences qui clôturent l’album. C’est en tout point remarquable et les trois Parties offrent un panorama de plusieurs  états de l’improvisation libre avec une grande cohérence. Le contrebassiste Nicolas Caloia s’intègre parfaitement dans l’ensemble avec une belle sensibilité et un goût du détail, chose essentielle dans la pratique d’Ernesto Rodrigues. De la vraie musique improvisée aboutie, assumée qui rassemble trois sensibilités – expériences différentes pour célébrer l’écoute mutuelle active. Une belle production de Karoline Leblanc, une artiste à suivre à la trace.. Jean-Michel van Schouwburg (Orynx)

This powerful new disc from Karoline LeBlanc, Ernesto Rodrigues and Nicolas Caloia is true to its title. Autoschediasm isn’t just a synonym for improv. According to Oxford, its use suggests “something done on the spur of the moment or without preparation; a hasty improvisation.”
It is certainly all of that. This is Cecil Taylor-level intense. Times three.
The album feature Karoline Leblanc on piano, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola and Nicolas Caloia on double bass. Leblanc and Caloia are both Canadians. Rodrigues, who brings the most extensive discography to the project, was born in Lisbon, Portugal.
Leblanc earned a reputation for herself as a concert pianist in the 1990s, premiering a number of Canadian composers’ work. As the decade wore on, she found herself drawn to less structured music. Since 1998, Leblanc has been best known for her complex improv style.
In addition to being a respected double bassist, Caloia is a composer, band leader and artistic director of the Montreal production company Musique rayonnante. He composes and performs with both chamber ensembles and orchestras.
While Rodrigues is clearly gracious enough to place himself second on this album’s bill, he is the group’s main attraction.
His 40-year career has earned him a following that includes lovers of contemporary, free jazz and other improvisational music. An accomplished violinist and violist, Rodrigues says electronic music was a major inspiration early in his career. He’s known to leverage instrument preparations and micro-tuning in his work.

All of the performers shine on this exhilarating three-part disc. Its range extends from quiet intensity to hang-on-to-your-hat. Remarkably though, it never overwhelms. The performances are entirely complementary to one another. autoschediasm is the kind of recording that makes us optimistic about the future of classical music. Kevin Press (Badd Press)

A release from the trio of pianist Karoline Leblanc and double bassist Nicolas Caloia, both of Montreal, and Portuguese violist Ernesto Rodrigues, Autoschediasm, recorded in June at the Conservatoire de Musique de Montréal, is an example of discerningly improvised timbral polyphony. From the first instant Leblanc, Caloia and Rodrigues reveals themselves to be possessed of a fine collective chemistry based on keen listening and sensitive responsiveness. Each leaves adequate room for the others’ instruments to breathe and to sound; their music is the product of what appears to be an unforced, natural rapport. As instrumentalists, all three are primarily colorists working with the full palettes that piano, double bass and viola make possible. The group’s fluency in handling color is especially evident on the second track, an exploration of space and tone. The strings are particularly creative here, with Rodrigues spinning out a full spectrum of unpitched sounds against Caloia’s harmonics, plucked and struck notes, and pressure bowing. Leblanc’s discreet interventions serve as the keystone holding Rodrigues’s and Caloia’s centripetal forces in place. By contrast, on the first piece the trio craft a long but coherent improvisation on the basis of skillfully handled dynamics and a seamless blend of conventional and extended techniques. Leblanc is a deft player, playing inside and outside the piano as needed, and alternating lead and support–or simply staying silent–when the collective sound seems to demand it. Caloia gets a robust sound and provides a firm grounding with his powerful mid and lower registers; Rodrigues’s sense of texture comes out nicely in his use of rapidly bowed layers or plucked and tapped points of sound. Daniel Barbiero (Avant Music News)

Kontynuujemy wątek improwizacji, tworzonej z dużą rozwagą I odpowiedzialnością za pojedynczy dźwięk. Przenosimy się do Montrealu, w scenie tamtejszego Konserwatorium Muzycznego meldują się, w roli gospodarzy - Karoline Leblanc na fortepianie, także preparowanym oraz Nicolas Caloia na kontrabasie, a w roli gościa – Ernesto Rodrigues na altówce, przy okazji wartościowy kontynuator wątku iberyjskiego dzisiejszej zbiorówki. Na płytę składają się trzy wątki - najdłuższy, krótszy i najkrótszy. Całość, zarejestrowana tego lata, trwa niespełna trzy kwadranse.

Pierwsza opowieść, stanowiąca niemal połowę nagrania, upływa nam na wyważonej, improwizowanej kameralistyce. Szumiące, chwilami wręcz taneczne pasaże na strunach altówki, kontrabas traktowany naprzemiennie pizzicato i arco, wreszcie skupiona pianistyka na klawiszach. Wszystko odbywa się w atmosferze świetnej komunikacji, jakakolwiek akcja nie pozostaje bez reakcji. Liryka i dynamika, szeroki wachlarz wrażeń estetycznych. Szczególnie urokliwe chwile, to 11-13 minuta, gdy muzycy decydują się na filigranowe rozmowy z akcentami preparacji na fortepianie i altówce, a także chamber bowed bass tuż pod nimi. Pod koniec trio dzieli się na następujące po sobie duety, które ubarwiają całą narrację. Precyzja, styl, dystynkcja, to elementy konstytuujące jakość tego nagrania.


Dwie krótsze improwizacje bardziej stawiają na sonorystykę, zmienność akcji i moc intrygujących inspiracji ze strony każdego z muzyków. W drugim fragmencie smakowity jest moment, gdy małe gierki toczą się niemal na poziomie podłogi, cisza wokół skwierczy, a muzycy stawiają na stylowe zaniechanie i przeurocze szuranie po strunach, także na dnie fortepianu. Jeszcze atrakcyjniejsza akustycznie zdaje się być finałowa opowieść. Szumiąca altówka, kontrabas, który trzeszczy niczym stara szafa w samym środku ciszy. Molekularna zabawa w wyłącznie udane koincydencje. Na ostatniej prostej muzycy czynią ciekawą pętlę narracyjną i wracają do kameralistycznej estetyki początku nagrania, czyli free chamber with meta jazz roots! Andrzej Nowak (Spontaneous Music Tribune)

“Autoschediasm” was released by “atrito-afeito” this year. Album was recorded by Karoline Leblanc (piano), Ernesto Rodrigues (viola) and Nicolas Caloia (double bass). These three musicians are interesting and creative jazz masters. Each of them has a new conception of avant-garde jazz. It’s formed by fresh ideas, innovative point of  view and wide imagination. Musicians like to make evocative musical decisions, inventive and experimental playing techniques, exotic combos, eclectic stylistic pairs and produce dozens of weird timbres. Their music is based on synthesis of avant-garde and experimental jazz, free improvisation and contemporary academical music. The music is filled with dynamic and rapid mood, who is contrasting with subtle, silent and peeaceful excerpts. The musicians are famous in avant-garde jazz scene – they are collaborating with numerous of other talented and interesting jazz stars. Together they create vivid, multi-colorful and bright sound.

“Autoschediasm” is filled with wide range playing techniques, interesting expressions and timbres. The music is somewhere between contemporary academical and free improvisation. The basics of avant-garde jazz are used here as the basic of whole musical pattern. It’s the main and the most important element of all – wild, free, subtle or dynamic collective improvisations are the main parts of each improvisation. The music is based on free and abstract musical pattern, who also is organic, multi-layed and polyphonic. Variable and dynamic rhythmic, modern harmony, rich musical language, intensive and impressive instrumentation, dozens of different layers, who are joined together – all these elements are interesting and brightly color whole musical pattern. The main idea of this album is to produce fresh, innovative and interesting sound. Musicians have a huge arsenal of instrumentation and expressions to do it. They manage to create fascinating and moving solos, impressive and roaring blow outs, vivid, remarkable and free improvisations, blowing, dizzy and wild passages, special effects and other elements. All these elements are gently fused together in one place. The music is based on different composing techniques – musicians have their own ways and fuse them with very well-known tendencies ofmodernism and contemporary academical music. Puantilism, repetitive rhythmic and melodic series, minimalism and post-minimalism, serialism, conrete music, ambient and other similar ways of composing are used here. All these elements make a strong relation with academical music. The musicians have a wonderful and precise playing technique – they can subtly and naturally passe through different moods, combine them without any effort or force and produce wide range of new and interesting timbres. The sound experiments, expansion of playing abilities and technical opportunities, search of new timbres are the main priorities of the musicians. They are dedicated to create free and evocative avant-garde jazz – the willing to form and keep stable, remarkable and attractive melodic line is less important for them. Music is filled with dozens of different tunes, timbres, expressions, pairs and combos – it makes exotic, warm, bright, expressive, moving, attractive, or – aggressive, abandoned, angry and odd sound with all its colors and tunes. Karoline Leblanch is a great pianist. She likes to fuse together uncompairable playing techniques, manners and episodes. Her improvisations are filled with furious, dizzy and aggressive rhythms, repetitive and turbulent series, dizzy, gentle and flowing passages, vivacious melodies, strange timbres and passionate glissando. These elements contain the most effective and moving pieces of her improvisations. Ernesto Rodrigues is an experienced and innovative violist. His music is bright, has rich and wide musical language. It’s beautified with odd timbres, gorgeous sounds, crazy or weird musical decisions, ambient and deep tunes, special effects and experimental playing techniques. Moving and abstract glissando, bordering dynamics, stable tunes, repetitive rhythmic series are contrasting with bright, intense, touching and passionate solos. All improvisations of viola make a huge effort to whole album – it brings the energy, live and much more interesting sound to the compositions. The elements of contemporary academical music are used here a lot – it finds a gentle combo with other instruments and free improvisation. Nicolas Caloia’s double bass improvisations are fantastic and wild. It’s also filled with bright sounds, weird timbres, luminous solos, intense and vibrant energy explosions and deep tunes. Musician masterfully tries out huge range of different ways of playing and composing – all these elements and compounds gently go along together. Double bass and viola form and keep strong background, which is brightly illustrated by ambient tunes, vibrant and deep sounds, special effects, repetitive sessions and electronics. The music of this album has interesting, evocative and bright sound. (Avant Scena)

In casa della label canadese Atrito-Afeito, azione acustica e suoi stravolgimenti sono all'ordine del giorno.
Nel caso di questo bel live, registrato al conservatorio di Montréal, l'accento vien posto maggiormente sull'acustico.
Il piano e contrabbasso dei canadesi Karoline Leblanc e Nicolas Caloia e la viola del portoghese Ernesto Rodrigues, si esibiscono lungo il corso di tre numeri che inglobano attimi di burrasca, nervosa stasi e rapida liberazione conclusiva.
Con maggior aroma black (Cecil Taylor?) in chiusura e apertura (entrambi di reattiva e sensuale contemporaneità) e un espanso passaggio esplorativo sul corpo strumento (la seconda, strabiliante parte, tra suoni parassitari e decisa, minimale performance).

I naviganti navigano, noi seguiamo il loro ottimo percorso. Marco Carcasi (Kathodik)

Autoschediasm (the term indicates something improvised, offhand or casual) presents a three-segment collective improvisation created by Montreal-based
pianist Karoline Leblanc and bassist Nicolas Caloia and Portuguese violist Ernesto Rodrigues. All are accomplished improvisers, but each brings different threads: Leblanc’s background stresses the classical avant-garde; Caloia’s career emphasizes free jazz; Rodrigues, who leads several distinct improvising orchestras in Lisbon, has championed free improvisation for over 30 years, appearing on scores of CDs.
While the title suggests something casual, the music sounds appropriate to
its Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal setting, the trio bringing a high modernist discipline and precision to the work. The opening movement flows with an energy that is dense and light. Sparked initially by LeBlanc’s imaginative keyboard flights, in its later stages it settles into a churning rhythmic pattern that ignites Rodrigues’ radical virtuosity, resulting in a flurry of microtonal lines that sometimes create their own counterpart.
Offhand? Casual? The only thing that distinguishes it from composed music is the challenge of writing it down.

The second movement takes a contrasting approach, developing little sounds, arising discreetly, sometimes pointillist, at times muffled, at others percussive, a gently humming underbrush alive with detail. The final segment moves from delicate sonic events to a turbulent, vibrant world that recalls the opening, a formal motion that exaggerates a pattern evident since the early classical era. It’s an act of “autoschediasm” rich in taut attention to nuance and form. Stuart Broomer (The WholeNote)


O novo registro do selo canadense atrito-afeito apresenta um trio que grava junto pela primeira vez. Aos canadenses Karoline Leblanc (piano) e Nicolas Caloia (baixo) se junta o português  Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), em um encontro que aconteceu no Conservatoire de Musique de Montreal, em junho de 2018. A apresentação, de pouco mais de 40 minutos, se divide em três partes, apesar de ser uma peça só, autoschediasm, que dá título ao álbum. Aqui estamos no campo da improvisação livre coletiva, em que os três instrumentistas exploram vias que se completam em diálogos ora harmoniosos, ora conflitantes, podendo ir cada um a um canto distinto ou se unirem para formar um todo de coerência estética e discursiva. Músicos experientes, conseguem criar, no geral, uma peça de inventivas possibilidades, soando como um conjunto camerístico de linhas moderadas mas desafiadoras, com sonoridades que devem exibir seu melhor no ambiente de uma sala de concerto – isso fica ainda mais evidente na detalhista "Part 2" –, onde cada movimento gestual pode ser captado pelo público. Leblanc, uma das destacadas pianistas da cena contemporânea, mostra um pouco de seu melhor em "Part 3", quando duela com a viola, em empolgante desfecho a partir dos cinco minutos, que faz o registro encerrar de forma vibrante. O CD sai em edição limitada de 100 cópias numeradas. (FreeForm, FreeJazz)



domingo, 30 de setembro de 2018

Penedo

CD - Creative Sources – CS516, Lisbon 2018


















1. I - 24'20''
2. II - 26'02''
3. III - 22'23''



Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Guilherme Rodrigues - Cello
Miguel Mira - Cello
Carlos Santos - Electronics



Recorded December 2017, Sintra


Reviews

As I continue to be busy (with a more extended project to appear in this space), so does Ernesto Rodrigues, with several more new releases, both including himself & not. While I might have something to say later about some of the latter items, with the convenience of Bandcamp, I can make a few remarks about some of the former albums now: In particular, I want to continue a focus on albums oriented on violin family ensembles, perhaps with some added spice. Rodrigues continues to be one of the leading producers of improvised music for bowed string ensembles, and if anything, seems to be intensifying his explorations in this specific arena: Penedo (the name of a region in Portugal) was recorded last New Year's Eve, and is another very long album from Rodrigues, with three twenty+ minute tracks coming to well over an hour. The ensemble presents something of a continuation to the concerns of the trio We Still Have Bodies (discussed here in August), but Penedo employs a string trio with a second cello (frequent collaborator Miguel Mira, yielding a fuller sound) joining Ernesto & Guilherme Rodrigues, and Carlos Santos subbing for Richard Scott on electronics. Santos generally brings a "smoother" (or more austere) style than Scott, with less contrapuntal "melody" per se, and more looping or sustain of frequencies at the extremes. (One might thus compare Penedo to Jardin Carré, the latter being a generally grittier & more inward looking affair, using a different string trio, and yielding a sense of circular reflection....) The second cello, of course, reflects a common (string trio) configuration for Rodrigues, e.g. already on Incidental Projections & Xenon (both discussed here in May 2017), and yields a tenor emphasis: On Penedo (perhaps given its place name title), the "central" texture thus supports a broad landscape sweep, invoking & acknowledging flora & fauna amid a general windswept (including via electronics) expanse. When technology intervenes, or more simply humanity, a sense of hybrid mystery arises, such that one ultimately finds oneself transformed by the journey, yielding a calm awareness & new attentiveness to one's surroundings. (The farewell has something of the ongoing, exploratory feel of Nashaz....) Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

Recorded on New Years Eve in Sintra in the Penedo region of Portugal, three strings--viola from Ernesto Rodrigues, cello from Guilherme Rodrigues, and a second cello from Miguel Mira--are joined by Carlos Santos on electronics for three extended and richly detailed improvisations, active yet concentratively controlled, using impressive and extended techniques. (Squidco)

"Penedo" in three parts is, in a sense, a "classic" quartet with Miguel Mira on cello and Carlos Santos on electronics. This is Rodrigues family operation at its best, and another magisterial example of free minimal music. The set was recorded in December 2017 in Penedo, Sintra, Portugal, which explains the title. Maciej Lewenstein


sexta-feira, 28 de setembro de 2018

Buratino

CD - Creative Sources – CS570, Lisbon 2018


















1. I - 10'16''
2. II - 03'45''
3. III - 16'12''
4. IV - 19'32''
5. V - 09'40''


Elo Masing - Violin
Ernesto Rodrigues - Viola
Hui-Chun Lin - Cello
Caroline Cecilia Tallone - Hurdy-Gurdy, Objects
Ame Zek - 12 String Guitar, Objects



Recorded May 2018, Berlin


Reviews

Also recorded by Petzold in Berlin this past May was Buratino, an album featuring Ernesto Rodrigues without either Guilherme or the former (at least not actively playing), but including previous collaborators Elo Masing (violin, from Crane Cries) & Hui-Chun Lin (cello, most recently mentioned here around Poiesis in May) to form a string trio that is further bolstered by Caroline Cecilia Tallone (hurdy-gurdy) & Ame Zek (12-string guitar). Neither of the latter had appeared in this space before (nor had the hurdy-gurdy at all, apparently), although Zek does have a solo album recently out on Creative Sources (First Bow, "dedicated to fight and fighters against corrupt capitalism"), and of course both also involve strings: Buratino thus employs an unusual string quintet, with the hurdy-gurdy providing "bowed" sustaining potential (acoustically, rather than electronically), and includes some new collaborators for Rodrigues. (And perhaps I should add a remark on recent digital-only release Efterår, pairing the two Rodrigueses & Masing in a quintet, this time with Tomo Jacobson on bass & Mia Dyberg on alto sax, neither of whom had appeared in this space previously: It's yet another appealing album, sometimes aggressive after starting on harmonics, and also apparently focusing on mental or emotional transition for the listener via a variety of evocations amid wave-like explorations of continuity — although it's rather short. I also feel compelled to note that it already appeared on Bandcamp the day after it was recorded, in Berlin, this month!) So Buratino consists of five tracks — totaling very close to an hour, and arranged as 3+2, as if two sides of an LP — and ranges from searing aggression to haunting (bizarre, sometimes naturalistic) mystery. Adding the hurdy-gurdy & (unusual) guitar yields more timbral variety, and the wealth of sonic interactions here include some of the most striking & unusual among those assembled on the set of four string albums featured in this entry. Not as traditionally contrapuntal as Dis/con/sent, the quintet instead emphasizes a "main line" that is variously accented: High pitches swirl against a drone in the opening, whereas pizzicati or glissandi might be thrown off repeatedly from a low rumble, particularly yielding to hocket & a driving (grinding) continuity on the second "side" (which seems to want to undo or unwind the calm eventually emerging from the first). The striking sounds end up being rather composite (i.e. involving multiple instruments simultaneously), in repeating stable figures, as opposed to e.g. the sense of "timbral spanning" (or disarticulation) of Coluro. That said, the prolificity & frequent conceptual overlap of these albums does inhibit one in selecting a single item to feature as "special," which of course is not a requirement in this space, but does leave me making these mixed entries: The truth is that if a single one of these albums appeared in a vacuum, I'd probably spend more time on it, but instead I've simply come to expect (yet) more. Such practical circumstances & resulting expectations sometimes make me feel uncomfortable (with my own response), but "comfort" really isn't the point: I actually enjoy & appreciate that Rodrigues releases so many albums with so many different musicians, and don't want to feel as though I'm "penalizing" anyone for doing so! Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts

A quintet of strings, hurdy gurdy, and amplified objects from Elo Masing on violin, Ernesto Rodrigues on viola, Hui-Chun Lin on cello, Caroline Cecilia Tallone on hurdy gurdy, objects, and Ame Zek on 12 string guitar, objects, recording in the studio for this 5 part improvisation, the hurdy-gurdy adding sustained mystery to a balance of subdued and assertive interaction. (Squidco)