“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom” reviewed by Textura

@c’s Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom declares its unique character even before a single note is heard. There’s the unusual group name, for starters, and then there’s the album’s four tracks, two of which are under two minutes, and the others twenty and forty. Assembled using studio, live and field recordings, Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom is, in fact, the seventh @c full-length from members Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela, and their third on Crónica. Carvalhais and Tudela are sonic alchemists who piece together elements into collages of restless, shape-shifting character. In the accompanying notes, they accurately describe themselves as sculptors, explorers, and even watchmakers with the album signifying “one more step in finding our way in music, looking for something we can’t really define.” In their constructions, Carvalhais and Tudela wrestle with the tension between the recording in its static form as a “finished” document and the improvisation strategies which they bring to the recording process as a means for liberating sound from the structural foundations of a given composition and that “finished” state.

@c’s explorative spirit is nowhere more evident than in the opening “62” whose hyperactive flow is somewhat normalized by the inclusion of Miquel Bernat’s percussion playing. Real-world elements likewise ground “71” and “72” where dog barks and amplified water are audible in the first, and the decayed grooves of Stephen Mathieu’s 78 RPM discs in the second. Not surprisingly, the album’s coup de grace is “61,” not simply on account of its length but because it integrates contributions from a huge supporting cast that includes vocalists, percussionists, and a sax player, guitarist, and electric cello player. Don’t think for a moment, however, that “61” sounds conventional for even a single second; Carvalhais and Tudela treat their guests’ sounds just as malleably as they do their own, making “61” even more uncompromising than the three pieces before it. The piece is like a huge, multi-limbed alien organism that never stops changing colour and shape while writhing relentlessly and sometimes violently for an exhausting forty minutes. Admittedly, the individual instruments do identifiably assert themselves on occasion—the cello and kalimba most audibly extricate themselves from the whole—but more often than not the contributors’ sounds are absorbed into @c’s complex web.

“Musicamorosa” reviewed by Cyclic Defrost

For this release, Jorge Mantas acts as an esthetician and a sound designer more than a composer or artist. The thematic concept around which this album orbits is one drawn from the French literary tradition, that of love lived through sadness. In particular, author Marcel Proust serves as a muse for the romantically inclined Mantas, who envisions his work as a suitable sound atmosphere to the images evoked by the formers masterpiece, In Search Of Lost Time.

From this kernel sprouts an attractive amalgam of cosmic ambition. “Un etourdissant reveil en musique” sets the bar almost impossibly high. Crystalline yet combustible, gentle yet hard, the lyrical drone of this piece is of such an evanescence that it ultimately comes to resemble a luminous plasma. Further works play more explicitly with memory and melancholy. Asides from the drone, Mantas has a fondness for natural sound collage and bruised acoustic instrumentals and he stitches them both into the fabric of numerous works. The rough textures of “Cantiques A La Gloire Du Soleil” are a suitable backdrop for manipulated voice and violin to drift across, sounding plaintively distant and ghostly as fragments of fresh sound come breaking in, wrestling one away from the stupor. In other places, these elements aid in a sensual adventure while at yet other moments they cement a simple but magical innocence or foster a sense of atmospheric aural illusion. In the sequence of these events, a strong, though admittedly threadbare, narrative is erected.

What prevents the ear from readily gulping down the sounds on display is Mantas’ occasional unwillingness to apply a critical sieve and test every note. This love of recollection is shown in a wholesome, unspoiled manner, and often in a way that is not without a certain charming candor, but all the same, the sweet perturbation of these sentiments sometimes betrays a wisp of self-importance which detracts from the effect. The album thus glows with and is itself occasionally overwhelmed by the magnanimity of its influences.

Max Schaefer

“Täuschung” reviewed by Music Club

Il compositore austriaco Davor Mikan realizza con questo “Tauschung” un concept esteso sulla memoria e sul ricordo, compilando trentuno microtracce elettroacustiche dove a prendere il sopravvento è la dimensione noise del suono. La suddivisione in titoli è onestamente arbitraria: tutti i pezzi – composti e rielaborati nel corso degli ultimi quattro anni – sono minimi frammenti sonori realizzati principalmente attraverso graphic-tool generativi e processati con software granulari, e l’album acquista un senso nella sua globalità, nell’ascolto completo e non certo nelle peculiarità delle composizioni in sé. L’autore si accorge del limite intrinseco della cosa, ed acclude allora delle note testuali che hanno influenzato la realizzazione e ne hanno motivato lo sviluppo. Senza questa linea guida, l’album mantiene un senso compiuto? Solo parzialmente, in verità. L’aspetto interessante della cosa è che le tracce possono essere interpretate come dei sigilli di cui l’autore stesso ha dimenticato il significato originale, e che acquistano quindi contenuti nuovi nel momento in cui riaffiorano a livello subconscio. Ma questo è un fattore che assume un valore per Davor Mikan, e certamente di meno per l’ascoltatore, a cui non rimane che confrontarsi con una materia che è sì compiuta , ma che anche non aggiunge nulla ad una branca sonora – quella elettro acustica di stampo concreto – in cui è difficile innovare se si sceglie la strada autarchica di Mikan. Un lavoro transitorio, mirato agli estimatori radicali del genere, che staziona in quel limbo tra la genuina ispirazione e la dubbia utilità.

Marco Castagnetto

“Täuschung” reviewed by Bad Alchemy

Mikan lebt und arbeitet in Wien, kommt aber wie aus dem Nichts. Sein Debut (?) komprimiert 31 Miniaturen auf 37 Minuten, noisiges, teils schroffes, manchmal aber nicht unwitziges Gekritzel, meist offenbar algorithmisch, teilweise auch von Hand generiert mit “generative graphic-tools togehter with granular synthesis”, was auch immer das heißen mag. Es hört sich stellenweise wie verzerrte Musik- oder Realitätsfetzen an, wie flattrige, zirpige, kaputte Samples, meist beschleunigt, zerknittert, zerschrottet oder chaotisch durchgeschüttelt. “Ein Tag” dauert nur 3:12 und ist dennoch mit Abstand das längste Teilstück. Mikan zitiert Sloterdijk, Pessoa und Olga Neuwirth, um einem Stichworte wie Illusion & Selbstbetrug, schwarzer Schimmelpilz und “Gesten, die nirgendwohin führen” als Heringe zuzuwerfen, die man entweder fressen oder auf der Nase balancieren kann.

“Täuschung” reviewed by Loop

This is the obtuse and abstract music of Viennese artist Davor Mikan who makes his debut on Portuguese’s Crónica Electronica label always pushing the boundaries of experimental electronic music. ‘Täuschung’ comprised 31 short tracks that collect sketched ideas of microscopic and sharp digital sounds. The music forms the most unpredictable shapes and mathematics angles. This album is the perfect mood to listen a world of little stories with an array of sounds.

“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom” reviewed by The Sound Projector

Candidate for ‘puzzler of the week’ is a curious recording by Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela, here trading under the name of @c. Their Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom (CRÓNICA 031) takes the practice of sampling into a strange and hermetic dimension. About 11 musicians were recorded over a five year period, only to have their distinctive contributions rendered down into this digital soup of confusion. Filled with perplexing angles and dimensions, to listen to this is like wandering in a crazy house. The title of the work I think confirms their approach to sonic architecture is somehow skewed with a perverse desire to keep turning everything sideways and upside down. Better not hire these two guys when you’re moving house!

“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom” reviewed by France Musique, Tapage Nocturne

C’est sous le pseudonyme d’@c que les portugais Miguel Carvalhais et Pedro Tudela viennent d’éditer leur 7ème album et leur troisième collaboration au catalogue du label Crónica basé à Porto. Miguel Carvalhais et Pedro Tudela sont des compositeurs chevronnés de musique concrète, ils utilisent des prises de sons réalisées en studio, sur scène ou en extérieur qu’ils mêlent avec beaucoup de dextérité et de complexité pour créer un univers sonore électronique et acoustique. Le titre de l’album utilise d’ailleurs les six noms de Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top et Bottom, noms que les physiciens attribuent aux quarks, ces particules les plus élémentaires que nous connaissons, qu”elles soient naturelles (à l’image des sonorités acoustiques) ou synthétiques c’est à dire produite à l’intérieur d”un accélérateur de particules comme ces sonorités créées par les manipulations électroniques de cet ingénieux duo.

“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom” reviewed by Loop

This is the seventh instalment – and the third for Crónica – of Porto based duo Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais. This CD took to Miguel and Pedro two years of production and comprised five years of live, studio and field recordings, work inspired from several artists that in this album found their contributions by ‘sample guests’ in the likes of Stephan Mathieu with its 78RPM recordings, an ongoing collaboration with the Drumming Percussion Ensemble in the 62 track. Number 71 are field recordings of Californian dog barking and track 61 includes bits of sound recorded with Cheny Gune (voice), Gustavo Costa, (percussion), Jonathan Uliel (percussion), Kenji Siratori (voice), Matchume Zango (percussion), Miquel Bernat (percussion), Neil Davidson (guitar), Raymond MacDonald (saxophone), Rita Azevedo Pinto (voice), Tinoca Zimba (percussion), Ulrich Mitzlaff (electric cello).

This is an amazing production by the duo since the edition of distorted voices, electroacoustic and concrete sounds, claterring percusion go perfectly into the mix.

“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom” reviewed by Le Son Du Grisli

Les Portugais Miguel Carvalhais et Pedro Tudela, ou @c, travaillent à une musique électroacoustique en passe de perdre son acoustique mais convaincante quand même.

Sur Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom, trouver quelques combinaisons malignes : de field recordings européens et de reverses velléitaires, de souffles effacés par le mouvement soudain d’un archet sur violoncelle, et de digressions électroniques qui refusent la fadeur généralement partagée par les défenseurs d’ambient nébuleuse.

Ailleurs, retravaillés, une guitare, un saxophone et quelques percussions, et le fruit étrange du travail minutieux d’un réducteur de voix, parachèvent la performance.

“Musicamorosa” reviewed by Textura

Can one possibly distill the poetic depths and labyrinthine sentences of Marcel Proust’s Á la recherche du temps perdu (published in English as Remembrance of Things Past and, in recent translations, In Search of Lost Time) into musical form, and capture the bittersweet ennui that suffuses the epic’s three thousand pages? Should one incorporate actual words from the text? Sonically mimic the memory evocation released by the petit madelaine? Daunting challenges of this type are confronted by Jorge Mantas (aka The Beautiful Schizophonic) in his Proust homage Musicamorosa. Mantas was inspired, not only by Proust’s magnificent prose, but by the image of the writer labouring over his monumental masterwork, famously composed (in part) when the writer retreated to a cork-lined room in a Paris apartment in order to devote himself entirely to the book’s completion. In essence, Mantas finds parallels between the lonely and melancholic Proust and the modern-day laptop composer in that both are dreamers coaxing imaginary worlds born from memory into being.

Mantas wisely uses the drone, often in crystalline form, as an analogue for evocation. The sinuous flowing lines in “Un étourdissant réveil en musique,” for example, convincingly suggest the imaginative surrender Proust’s narrator experiences during his full-blown resurrection of the Combray universe. The musical treatment is delicate and, most critically for honouring Proust’s sensibility, elegiac. At times the drone is ethereal (e.g., “L’amour, c’est l’espace et le temps rendus sensibles au coeur”) and sometimes beautifully so, as the lustrous entrancement of “Cantiques à la gloire du soleil” so strongly demonstrates; at other times it includes naturalistic elements which give it an earth-bound character (e.g., water sounds in “Zéphir marin, féerique comme un clair de lune” and “Les oiseaux qui dorment en l’air”). Further contrast is introduced in “On se souvient d’une atmosphère parce que des jeunes filles y ont souri” by shifting the spotlight to José Luís Merca’s delicate electric guitar strums and in “La lectrice” by having Colleen (Cécile Schott) actually read Proust’s text. Interestingly, like Schott on her Colleen et les boîtes à musique release, Mantas exploits the associative potential of the music box in “Un jardin encore silencieux avant le lever du jour” in a way that suggests the re-awakening of childhood memory and the inner rapture that follows upon it. The album’s sole failing arrives at album’s end in the remix of “Soixante-quatre” by @c which lacks the restraint and conceptual cohesiveness that characterizes the other material. Without it, Musicamorosa would be a more perfectly-realized fifty-two-minute recording. Ultimately, it must be conceded that the magnificence of Á la recherche du temps perdu invariably defeats even the noblest composer’s attempt to render it in sonic terms. But it must also be conceded too that, at the very least, Mantas’s noble attempt proposes a legitimate “solution” on conceptual grounds.