Creative Sources Recordings – CS660, Lisbon 2020
Ernesto Rodrigues - Violin & Viola
Carlos Santos - Live Electronics
Recorded December 2018, Lisbon
Cover design Carlos Santos
Reviews
Ernesto Rodrigues has continued to release several new albums over the past couple of weeks, including some recorded in 2018: Given his usual very fast release pace, that seems like a while ago for Rodrigues, but perhaps the quarantine presents an opportunity to finish some older productions that may have drifted to the back burner.... Among these, I especially want to highlight Metamorfose, recorded in Lisbon in December 2018 by the duo of Rodrigues (on both violin & viola) & Carlos Santos (live electronics). Rodrigues & Santos, frequent collaborators in various groups, had already released the duo album Piano (as mentioned here in August 2017 & January 2019), and in involving a single instrument between them, it also included distinct roles, i.e. Santos at the keyboard & Rodrigues manipulating the strings inside. Roles are distinct on Metamorfose too, with Rodrigues playing violin or viola & Santos manipulating the sound via various timbral disarticulations & echoes, but while Piano never really "sounds like a piano," Metamorfose sounds like a traditional string instrument much of the time: Indeed, the magical parts of the performance are the sudden & disorienting realizations of what seems like a violin being revealed to have been slowly & almost imperceptibly transformed into something else — more than a violin. At times, then, there is some "real" electronic counterpoint, or more often various drones (whether above or below the texture) & echoes, but such involvements tend to be oriented around what mostly seems to be a solo string performance. And that soloistic character is also what makes Metamorfose such a striking release for Rodrigues, as his prolific contributions are often buried within various broader textures: Here they're usually front & center, though, opening with what sounds like trickling water & moving through various waves of (usually) continuous transformation, sometimes grainy & sometimes into a shimmering spaciness via high position harmonics & electronic processing in turn.... (The soloistic quality can be compared with that of the recent trio album Multiforms, as discussed here in May, albeit there in a more typically energetic free jazz setting. In contrast, the various figures & transformations of Metamorfose do not suggest a specific prior idiom....) The sometimes subtle electronics thus serve to proliferate & ramify string figures into a variety of textures, some more expansive — not so unlike the various transformations & wave-like complexifications animating Setúbal (& some other newer productions, as recently noted), there becoming more expansive & forceful via multiple acoustic instruments. The greater sense of concentration & economy — albeit boosted by electronics at various points — suggests a more specific tour-de-force on Metamorfose then, including through a variety of techniques highlighting the violin in quasi-traditional ways. (One might e.g. recall extremes of technical duration & harmonics in e.g. Irvine Arditti's "naked" performances of Cage's late violin works with their long held tones, but here a wobble can lead in turn to exposing a detail of string grain explicitly or an entire spectrum of timbre via further electronic interrogation....) In that, it's not so different from some other duo albums featuring live electronics/sampling around a traditional instrument, e.g. as recalled here around Elective Affinities just this past March... where it's also a matter of multiplying the resources of the instrument, including while often leaving it recognizable. In this, Metamorfose further suggests a sense of evolutionary becoming & even liminality per se (more so than e.g. a travelogue, as posited around some other productions) via extended variation — & marks a new vision of contemporary violin/viola solo performance in the process: In short, it becomes its own world. Todd McComb's Jazz Thoughts
O título diz tudo: parceiros em numerosas situações com o envolvimento de outros músicos, neste disco Ernesto Rodrigues e Carlos Santos centram-se na ideia de tornar o violino e a viola do primeiro em instrumentos expansivos, ou seja, com qualidades metamórficas que vão muito para além das suas capacidades acústicas naturais, mas que nunca iludem essa origem. Como? Com o seu computador, Santos processa em tempo real o que o companheiro faz, numa exploração que é predominantemente tímbrica, mas, regra geral, tão discreta e tão determinada em deixar incólume a sonoridade do violino ou da viola, que é como se este duo fosse, na verdade, um solo assistido de Rodrigues. Se a anterior combinação destes dois improvisadores, “Piano”, optou por prescindir dos instrumentos com que habitualmente os ouvimos a tocar, ocupando-se o violetista das cordas interiores de um piano e utilizando o manipulador electrónico, em simultâneo, o teclado desse mesmo piano, neste “Metamorfose” a motivação é tornar em ferramentas cibernéticas os cordofones em causa sem lhes retirar humanidade.
Carlos Santos é exímio neste tipo de procedimentos, como de resto sabíamos pelo trabalho que desenvolvia num grupo que tarda em repetir apresentações de palco, o ZNGR Electro-Acoustic Ensemble, com Carlos “Zíngaro” e Emídio Buchinho, mas tendo em conta o muito que já fez com Ernesto Rodrigues e encontramos no catálogo da Creative Sources faltava saber como resultaria uma abordagem deste género num contexto que substitui totalmente a frase pela textura, o discurso ainda melódico e narrativo da música improvisada herdeira do free jazz pelo uso plástico e abstracionista dos materiais sonoros segundo as premissas deixadas pela música erudita contemporânea (estou a falar em predominâncias de linguagem, pois “Zíngaro” também toca texturalmente e Rodrigues pode ser, por vezes, frásico). Agora sabemos, numa música que ora recorre ao “drone”, ora se torna acentuadamente percussiva, e que nos vai gradualmente fascinando ao longo de 36 minutos. Sim, este é, sem dúvida, um dos álbuns do ano… Rui Eduardo Paes (Jazz.pt)
A beautifully subtle and strange twisting of tones, timbres and strings from the duo of Ernesto Rodrigues on violin & viola and Carlos Santos on electronics, recorded live in 2018 at O'Culto da Ajuda, in Lisbon, creating mysterious environments that metamorphose between sections through string interjections, each segment creating a new, mesmerizing environment. (Squidco)
"Metamorfose", recorded at O'Culto da Ajuda, is the essence of Ernesto and Carlos, reduce to a direct duo interaction. Ernesto combines pizzicato techniques with bowing and draws into the reach sea of sound generated by Carlos. Or vice versa. At some moment it is impossible to distinguish, who is who, who plays what, etc. Wonderful music! Maciej Lewenstein
Chi segue la Creative Sources sa che un buon 35% delle registrazioni viene da Rodrigues stesso o dalle formazioni da lui assemblate (Isotope Ensemble, String Theory, Lisbon String Trio, Diceros, etc.). Oltre a consigliarvi le nuove registrazioni di questi ensembles, in questa sede mi va di proporvi soprattutto un cd in duo con Carlos Santos all’elettronica, dal titolo Metamorfose: concentrato su violino e viola, Rodrigues lo ha registrato nel 2018, al centro d’arte di o’culto de Ajuda di Lisbona (qui trovi l’esibizione con un audio infedele però), contrapponendo una consolidata pratica estensiva con un’elettronica al computer moderatamente trasformativa; il concetto è probabilmente quello di incrementare il peso delle proporzioni distraenti con interventi mirati all’espansione sonora. Tutto ciò che viene fatto sugli strumenti trova un parallelo, un prolungamento dal lato emotivo dei suoni: note sostenute da una movimentazione degli archetti, glissando sulla corda, rivolgimenti ottenuti in vari modi grazie allo sfruttamento della tastiera e tante altre attività “illecite” di Rodrigues, si infiltrano in un panorama definito, su cui Santos dosa i suoi interventi; talvolta sparisce, talvolta è molto presente, agendo direttamente sulla spazialità della fonte oppure creando delle sovrapposizioni logiche ed interessanti che fanno pensare un pò all’elettroacustica di Lawrence Casserley.
Rodrigues e Santos sono parte di un progetto di improvvisazione sperimentale che richiede una proiezione del suono (Miguel Azguime è colui che se ne occupa), ma non è l’unico programma profuso dai due musicisti: parallelamente hanno imbastito sessioni improvvisative per sondare i rumori di un unico pianoforte percosso in punti diversi (gambe, rotelle ed estremità del corpo – puoi sentire qui); i risultati ottenuti però non sono così eccitanti rispetto a quanto invece proviene da Metamorfose, che resta modernissimo e riuscito, guarda inesorabilmente i tempi che viviamo ed è il modo migliore per apprezzare le qualità dei due artisti: da una parte quelle mai tanto riconosciute di Rodrigues e dall’altra quelle prospettiche di Santos, un sound designer che regola nell’improvvisazione libera una condizione di esistenza, con suoni pensati nel domestico e rinvenibili da una realtà informatica o cinematografica (l’animazione teorica profusa da un computer, un cellullare o una soundtrack di un film o video). Ettore Garzia (Percorsi Musicali)
There had to be a reason why, several months ago, Ernesto Rodrigues recommended that I listen with special attention to this duo with Carlos Santos, recorded in 2018 and released in 2020. Indeed, Metamorfose is both a “classic” Creative Sources CD – improvisational purity in a semi-solid state – and a departure from what we generally assume when Rodrigues is engaged in a recording.
Santos, who juggles viola and violin sonics via electronics supposedly run by a computer (…or is it?), is crucial in glorifying the innermost potentials of every single molecule put in vibration by his partner. The latter unleashes the entire range of bowed wisdom for which he is renowned: jittery tremolos, lingering whispers, crossbreeding between wood and strings, percussion combined with extended techniques, upper partials that stroke or bite depending on the moment.
The processing of the components produces a chain of transients, alignments and total deconstructions of the acoustic realm, at the same time challenging the listener’s psychoacoustic skills. We discern the concurrence of sound and noise without one of the two elements overpowering the other. We sense a vividly resonant “environment” that, in some moments, almost made us turn around to check if something was moving behind. One gradually becomes attuned to the music, including the most discordant harmonic period. That, in any case, represents the preliminary to a developmental stage.
It may be improvisation, but the ultimate taste is that of a serious electronic composition. As the waters calm down and the silence regains possession of our room, the realization of what has happened is etched in the mind. No necessity to lucubrate further. Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)
