S’il aime comparer son travail à celui du calligraphe, Jos Smolders sculpte les sons plus qu’il ne les peint, composant des structures au fluxes mouvants, où glitches scintillants et bruitages familiers forment un tout à la précision abstraite. Car l’abstraction est ici partout et ailleurs, comme poussée par ces sons qui changent de consistance, à …
Category Archives: Reviews
“Geography†reviewed by RNE 3 Atmosfera
Vitor Joaquim es un gran amigo de Atmósfera. Le conocimos en el festival Semibreve y desde entonces hemos seguido su carrera con gran interés. Vitor Joaquim es un experimentador del laptop y artista visual y sonoro que comenzó improvisando música en directo y trabajando en danza contemporánea a finales de los 80. Desde entonces, Vitor …
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“Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recording†reviewed by Bad Alchemy
Smolders sieht sich durch jahrelange Zenübung vom niederländischen Planer zu Klangkalligraphen befreit. Ein Klangfluss kann sich nun in einem Zug entfalten, statt erst in akribischer Feilerei und Korrigiererei Gestalt anzunehmen. “Nowhere” spielt dabei schon auch irgendwo, ‘Incident at Ras Oumlil’ führt nach Marokko, irgendwo zwischen Guelmim und Tan-Tan. Aber es gibt Orte, an denen man …
Sven Schlijper on Jos Smolders’s “Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recordingâ€
Nowhere marries brutalism to beautalism. Smolders knows the tools of his trade, inside and out. Movements are trained, skilled and well honed. The performance and the product it delivers open up to the moments of making and of reproduction. The controls handed over to aesthetics, again: moving swiftly. Gently also, like an inked brush gliding across …
Massimo Ricci on Jos Smolders’s “Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recordingâ€
Those who have seriously attempted to operate a synthesizer know from experience how easy getting lost in the meanders of programming is. In a plurality of parameters and wave shapes, finding a way to produce a decent result – let alone a beautiful one – is not exactly a walk in the park when the necessary practicality …
Chris Dooks on Jos Smolders’s “Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recordingâ€
The first track from Jos Smolders’s Nowhere is a good example of music generating images of somewhere, even if it is an unstable, ungraspable locale. Smolders’s modular synthesis works are surprisingly cinematic for music of a kind that is often labeled clinical, academic or heavy. The work has a ‘materiality’ that is nimble and strong, like a kind …
“Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recording†reviewed by Vital
A few years ago, Jos Smolders sold all his records, switched off his laptop and invested in the purchase of modular synthesizer parts; a whole lot of them. Simply because it was time to do something new. Before that he worked extensively with tape-machines, found sound and later on with laptop technology to create his …
“Nowhere: Exercises in Modular Synthesis and Field Recording†reviewed by nitestylez.de
Scheduled for release on January 10th, 2k17 via the Portuguese imprint Cronica is Jos Smolders newest album effort named “Nowhere: Exercises In Modular Synthesis And Field Recording” in which we see the artist stepping away from his usual approach of detailed, thought out composition and exploring a method of letting his electronic devices of mostly …
“Against Nature†reviewed by Neural
Whether is an experimenter known for his releases on Entr’acte, Helen Scarsdale, Line and baskaru. The field recordist is accustomed to calibrating addictive acoustic explorations of space and resonant objects. The sounds in Against Nature were generated during a residency with Kunstsenter Agder, in Kristiansand, Norway. There are five tracks. The longer ones (the first, …
“Geography†reviewed by Nieuwe Noten
Het Portugese label Crónica is een ware goudmijn voor een ieder die houdt van experimentele elektronische muziek. Eerder kwamen hier reeds Arturas BumÅ¡teinas met ‘Gamelan Descending a Staircase’ en Martijn Tellinga met ‘Positions’ voorbij. Nu ligt er een nieuwe schijf van de eveneens uit Portugal afkomstige laptopkunstenaar Vitor Joaquim. Vitor Joaquim is een man van …