“Geography” reviewed by Silence and Sound

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Chez Joaquim Vitor, infiniment grand et infiniment petit forment un tout qui aime se conjuguer au pluriel, faisant valser les concepts d’intériorité et de spatialisation, de collage et de de mémoire, pour un assemblage qui voit sa propre histoire fusionner avec celle plus vaste de l’humanité.

Les interférences semant le désordre sont agencées de telle manière à ce qu’elles régulent une certaine idée du chaos. Celui engendré par l’homme sur son environnement, déployant tout son ingéniosité pour tenter de percer les secrets d’une nature aussi fuyante que les courbes de l’arc-en-ciel.

Geography fait appel aux sens cosmiques et à ceux que l’on apprend à enfoncer dans les profondeurs de sa mémoire, formant un bloc monolithique aux secousses permanentes et subtilement sublimées. Aux croisements de l’électro-acoustique et du sensitif, Vitor Joaquim dessine des montagnes aux cimes enfouies dans une nature aux brouillards denses et enveloppants, à travers lesquels on discerne les éclats d’une histoire en mouvement, faite de jonctions et de hasards, d’incidents et de météorologies transversales, où les mélodies se cachent pour fuir la lente agonie du temps. Envoutant. Roland Torres

via Silence and Sound

“Geography” reviewed by Amusio

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Preziosen wie Laurie Anderson, Simon Fischer Turner oder Harald “Sack” Ziegler schmücken Geography (Crónica), das neue Album des portugiesischen Klangeroberers Vitor Joaquim. Und das alles „nur“, um in Folge der Überlegungen des Biogeographen Jared Diamond seinem Wunsch zu entsprechen, sich den Vollzugsweisen der Verortung nähern zu können. Wie zuvor den emotionalen Haushalten (Flow) oder der Idee universeller Unendlichkeit (Filament). Wer jetzt gleich von der „Vermessung der Welt“ schwafelt, wird sofort der Selbigen bezichtigt, wenn auch ohne irdischen Bezug.
Die Vielzahl der an Geography Teilhabenden rekrutiert sich aus den Samples, die Vitor Joaquim in sein eher meditativ anmutendes Werk eingeflochten hat. Sie entstammen der unzähligen Live-Performances des Musikers (an der Seite besagter und somit zitierter Kollegen) und erstellen somit auch eine persönliche Kartographie. Und doch (nicht dennoch) drängt sich ein Gedanke auf: Indem Vitor Joaquim kompiliert und verdichtet, desavouiert er zugleich den Gegenstand seines musikalischen Essays. Das Individuum erstellt immer Interpretationen seiner Umgebung, jeder Atlant bleibt Kompromiss. So lässt sich auch Geography als ein Dokument der Biographie verstehen (und genießen), muss aber hinter den selbst gestellten Anforderungen zurückbleiben.
Der Ansatz von Vitor Joaquim erinnert insofern u. a. an jenen, mit dem James Brooks seine Land Observations unternahm. Während der Brite die Verstandesleistung zum kreativen Pendant der vereinbarten Koordinaten erklärt, richtet sich der Portugiese tendenziell gegen die Individualisierung des als gegeben Verifizierten. Es sollte auch in seinem Schaffen – und somit entspricht er der Auffassung des Vordenkers Jared Diamond („Arm und Reich. Die Schicksale menschlicher Gesellschaften“) – Determinanten geben, von denen es sich erst a posteriori, also nach deren Anerkennung, wieder zu distanzieren gilt.
Es war wohl auch Jared Diamond, der an anderer Stelle erklärte, dass Menschen nur miteinander verkehren, damit kein anderer Artgenosse daherkommt, um den individuell verkehrenden Menschen zu verdrängen und somit zu ersetzen. Insofern ist es Vitor Joaquim zumindest gelungen, mit Geography ein Denkmal in eigener Sache zu setzen. Im Zweifel für die Kunst, dient Geographie doch vornehmlich, wenn nicht gar einzig und allein: der banalen Navigation. Stephan Wolf

via Amusio

“Roha” reviewed by Neural

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Roha is the first solo album by Andreas Trobollowitsch, ex member of the duo Nörz and Acker Velvet, a musician and Vienna-based composer, performer and sound artist that, in collaboration with David Schweighart, composed the soundtrack for the 1920’s cinema series Digi Wave for the Filmarchiv, Austria. Compared with its past works the free form patterns now seem to undergo a meticulous process of manipulation, a wider combination and overlapping, following cryptic trajectories made vivid by sophisticated chords and carefully studied harmonies. Trobollowitsch is accustomed to sound installations in which the auditory process is much more ‘mechanical’, simply recall “Sambas De Uma Só Note,” “Acoustic Turntables” or “Santa Melodica,” of which we hear excerpts during the eight tracks of Roha. Finally, any digitally produced sound is included even though a sound-source can originate from a single source, from feedback produced by a electric bass, from a double bass, from a piano loop that gradually transforms until it almost dissolves into a wall of sound. There is no shortage of more intricately structured textures which follow changes in pitches, grinding noises, hinted at melodies: all in a very organic context, built with plenty of sonic substance and with a densely textural patchwork. Even the artwork made by Miguel Carvalhais – one of the masterminds of the Cronica Electronica ­– is impeccable, designed with the same organic-mechanical fascination that permeates the entire album. Aurelio Cianciotta

via Neural

Futurónica 175

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Episode 175 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, September 16th.

The playlist of Futurónica 175 is:

  1. Vitor Joaquim, Geography (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  2. Vitor Joaquim, Cantino (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  3. Vitor Joaquim, Ganda (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  4. Vitor Joaquim, Technography (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  5. Vitor Joaquim, Cargo (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  6. Vitor Joaquim, Exodus (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  7. Vitor Joaquim, Domo Arigato (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  8. Vitor Joaquim, 8’20” (2016, Geography, Crónica)
  9. Vitor Joaquim, Slow Moments (2006, Flow, Crónica)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.

New release: Vitor Joaquim’s “Geography”

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Crónica is elated to present Vitor Joaquim’s new album, “Geography“!

History followed different courses for different peoples because of differences among peoples’ environments, not because of biological differences among peoples themselves.
Jared Diamond

On my previous albums I have turned my attention to the interior subjectivity of our feelings (Flow, 2006) and to the never ending firmament of the Universe (Filament, 2011). They were inspired on a space-time scale of observation that has existed in me since ever. And, I guess, in all of us. On one hand, we feel immersed on the big questions of the universe — How big is it? Where’s the end of it? What’s after the end? Can we understand how big it can be? On the other hand, just two minutes after, we may completely turn towards ourselves, and to our little-big existentialist problems — Who am I? What I’m doing here? What’s “here”?…

With Geography, I wanted to look around and forget about individuality and infinitude. I wanted to dive on Jared Diamond’s concepts about geography and how the human species evolved on the planet.

Like Diamond explains in his book Guns, Germs and Steel, geography is shaping humankind since its beginning. Composed by unique individualities across the globe, human history and culture have been tailored by our surroundings ways that we cannot even imagine. Surroundings are all that is around us: rain, wind, dry weather, rocks, animals, water, germs, seeds, land — fertile or not, populated or not, friendly or not. Surroundings can be hostile but can also provide us with resources. It all depends on “where”.

Responding to the constraints imposed by this environmental condition, throughout the years, ingenuity and creativity have helped us to survive and prosper like no other species, despite all the inequality. Humankind found a way to overcome difficulties, mainly through the use of imagination from which resulted the invention of technologies.

What results of that tension between environment and human ambition, is an eternal fight between geographical conditions and the existentialist forces in every one of us. Following this dialectic, the titles on Geography are softly evocations of that story, alluding to curious moments in history, circumstances and affairs of the human adventure on the planet and on the Universe. From small- to large-scale, all of them — moments, circumstances and affairs — with long plots.

In Geography I also wanted to trace back friendly moments with fellow musicians with whom I have performed with in the past. All samples used in the record are thus memories of those times and my own geography of personal and musical relationships.

All tracks written, played and produced by Vitor Joaquim.

Contains samples from live performances with:

Angelica Salvi (harp: 6, 7)
Carlos Zíngaro (violin: 7)
Colleen (music box: 7)
Dimas Pereira (accordion: 6, 7)
Günter Heinz (trombone: 7, 8)
Gustavo Costa (percussion: 7, 8)
Joe Giardullo (sax: 6)
Harald Sack Ziegler (voice, french horn: 4, 7, 8)
Niño de Elche (voice: 6)
Simon Fisher Turner (piano: 7)
Ulrich Mitzlaff (cello: 7)
Includes sound bits from: Apollo program (1), Flow, Vitor Joaquim / Crónica (4); La Strada is on Fire (and We Are All Naked), Vitor Joaquim / Crónica (5); interview with Laurie Anderson on DP/30 (8).

Inspired by Guns, Germs and Steel, The Fates of Human Societies (1997) a book by Jared Diamond.

Cover images from the David Rumsey map collection: Mappa selenographica: totam lunae hemisphaeram visibilem complectens. Guilelmo Beer & Joanne Henrico Maedler, 1834; Circumpolar Map for each Month of the Year. W.G. Evans & E.H. Burritt, 1835.

“Geography” is now available for direct order from Crónica’s website, from cronica.bandcamp.com and from selected retailers.

Futurónica 174

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Episode 174 of Futurónica, a broadcast in Rádio Manobras (91.5 MHz in Porto, 18h30) and Rádio Zero (21h GMT, repeating on Tuesday at 01h) airs tomorrow, September 2nd.

The playlist of Futurónica 174 is:

  1. Gintas K, Pri (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  2. Gintas K, Pazr (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  3. Gintas K, Git (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  4. Gintas K, Tas (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  5. Gintas K, Geras (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  6. Gintas K, Po (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  7. Gintas K, Jodds (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  8. Gintas K, Gg2 (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  9. Gintas K, Ziu (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  10. Gintas K, Arsi (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  11. Gintas K, Zrtqew (2016, Low, Opa Loka)
  12. Gintas K, live at Culture Cafe, Kaunas, 16 February 2015 (2015, Crónica)

You can follow Rádio Zero’s broadcasts at radiozero.pt/ouvir and Rádio Manobras at radiomanobras.pt.