Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom, disco recente do duo portuense @C (Miguel Carvalhais e Pedro Tudela) regista uma experiência criativa que lida com a microtonalidade e a criação de sons digitais e/ou digitalizados produzidos em ambiente laptopiano, tanto em circuito fechado como em espaço amplo e aberto ao longo de um perÃodo de cinco anos. Nesta nova edição da Crónica Electrónica, o duo aplica com saber e efeito um vasto conjunto de técnicas de estúdio no tratamento de material sonoro produzido e captado em actuações ao vivo em trabalho de campo, via recolha de sons ambientais. PartÃculas que se organizam para produzir/reproduzir propostas consequentes no domÃnio da arte sonora. Em Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom não se chegam a formar linhas contÃnuas de sinal, tantas são as alterações no fluxo narrativo, que já não o é, antes se afirma como o resultado de um conjunto ordenado de eventos em cadeia que se condicionam uns aos outros e formam novas sinergias. Recusando a passividade do paisagismo descritivista e contemplativo, a música do duo @C prefere interpelar-nos, ao exigir um compromisso da parte do ouvinte no sentido de, através da atenção concentrada, criar o magma mental que acabará por ligar os incontáveis fragmentos que compõem os quatro puzzles sonoros (62; 71; 72 e 61) em constante movimento. Em tudo se nota uma preocupação (conseguida) de integrar vestÃgios do mundo orgânico (voz humana, percussão, saxofone, violoncelo, ladrar de cães, tráfego, sons nocturnos e aquáticos) num tecido digital cativante na sua sóbria beleza formal e na solidez fragmentária das esculturas que a dupla nos propõe e que parecem assumir-se simultaneamente como sÃntese e projecção futura das diferentes abordagens que têm dado a conhecer ao longo da sua actividade artÃstica, de que se conhecem já sete saÃdas, três delas na editora por ambos fundada e dirigida.
“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom†reviewed by Vital
Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela are @C, armed with their laptops they play mostly improvised music. However, important, they don’t release improvised music. How is this possible. Their improvisations are restricted for playing together, in a concert like situation, with or without audience. All of the resulting recordings are taken into the studio and used as building blocks for their music. On this, their seventh release, they use recordings from concerts, studio work and field recordings which they recorded over a period of five years and deals mainly with the improvisations they did with others. Sometimes the ‘other’ was present while everything was played, sometimes the ‘other’ arrives through the form of a sample. They remove all the ‘unwanted’ bits of improvisations and use only that which hold the test, and these are used in these four constructions. They are vibrant, lively pieces of musique concrete, sometimes not unlike releases on Empreintes Dgitales, but with a more anarchistic, free approach. The software used is not the what it is about, but it’s result, which, as @C say, ‘becomes itself, and will become music each time it is played, to everyone and everywhere it is so’. Which I believe is very much true. There is so much happening on every level of this disc, that it requires a few rounds of listening until everything is uncovered and then the ‘real’ thing starts again: finding the overall picture again. It’s a full CD, but one that has a lot to give. Great work. (FdW)
“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom†reviewed by Boomkat
Although by no means one of the more prominent acts currently operating in the microsound field, @C have consistently made valuable contributions to the genre, publishing work through labels like Sirr, Room40, Grain Of Sound and of course, Crónica. For this album, the duo render vivid acousmatic soundscapes from a variety of recordings: room sounds, voices, running water and even a stray cello make up this electroacoustic banquet, and it’s all structured in a highly unconventional fashion. The album is bookended by the two most substantial pieces, the first lasting twenty minutes, the last more than double that duration. Through these two lengthy works you’ll bear witness to a vast and evocative auditory environment, coloured by intimately recorded details and enigmatic clouds of drone wafting past. Importantly, youâ€ll find two incredibly brief miniatures wedged between these, proving that @C arenâ€t all about the long haul. These two compositions reveal an incredibly vivid, intensely tactile sound world and break up the other more expansive, pensive pieces. In their own way these 90-second interludes are they key works here, painting rich sonic portraits of some imaginary location. Highly recommended.
“Musicamorosa†reviewed by Sands-zine
Questa, per quanto ne so, è la prima vera uscita di Jorge Mantas, e l’autore tiene fede alla sua ragione sociale con un disco assolutamente schizofrenico, non tanto perché contiene atmosfere sonore particolarmente schizzate, tutt’altro, quanto perché potrebbe essere benissimo attribuibile a due o tre autori diversi. Le prime 4 piste dispensano una musica rilassata e completamente aritmica, se pure non rarefatta e comunque condotta a volume sostenuto, oltreché venata da una malcelata vena romantica. Les oiseaux qui dorment en l’air, con il suo look rumorista concreto condotto su più bassi volumi, rappresenta un primo stacco netto dal modello iniziale. On se souvient… è un bozzetto minimale che ripropone la vena romantica ma, viceversa dalle prime piste, è condotto in modo più raccolto e potrebbe essere stato suonato benissimo da un duo pianoforte-violino. La lectrice rappresenta un altro taglio netto, e infatti vi si sente solo la voce di Cécile Schott (aka Colleen) che legge un testo di Proust (e proprio Proust sembra essere una delle massime ispirazioni dell’autore). L’amour… torna alla ambientazioni iniziali, se pure con atmosfere più cupe, e Dans la chambre magique d’une sibylle rompe completamente ogni logica precedente basandosi sul trattamento digitale della chitarra arpeggiata da Tobias Strahl. Dopo due piste che riprendono il mood dominante, Un jardin encore silenceux avant le lever du jour chiude sullo stesso tema, ma presenta come variazione iniziale un sottofondo di carillon. Anzi, non chiude, ché c’è spazio per una tredicesima pista nella quale i portoghesi @C frantumano e ricompattano la musica del ‘bello schizofonico’, nell’arco di oltre una dozzina di minuti, in un’operazione riorganizzativa davvero eccellente. “Musicamorosa†è sicuramente un bel disco ed è anche piacevole da ascoltare, come è stato osservato da più parti, però si macchia di una pur unica colpa: passa e va… senza lasciare traccia. Boh!!!, ma consigliarne l’acquisto mi parrebbe comunque esagerato.
“Täuschung†reviewed by The Wire
Vienna based Mikan’s broken english is strangely helpful in highlighting the existential and creative confusion that informs these 31 short pieces, conceived using graphic tools and granular synthesis. “After four years, the distance to this music is completely lost,†he writes. He cannot recall what emotional spasms gave rise to these knotty, fragmented scrawls of abstract electronic music, despite searches through his notes and correspondence. Certainly, the most effective and distinctive aspect of Täuschung is the way in which pieces disappear abruptly, drowned in infancy, after less than a minute sometimes. Several tracks are barely titled, while others are more vividly monikered: “Das Gewitter hat sich in eine Bahnhofshalle zurückgezogenâ€. It’s as if, to misquote Satie, these are the sonic memoirs of an amnesiac.
David Stubbs
“Täuschung†reviewed by Cyclic Defrost
The thirty-one tracks on Täushung betray a nest of family resemblances, but they are lost on the one who, using graphic tools and granular synthesis, gave rise to them in the first place. Some four years later, the atmosphere, as it were the corona of lightly indicated uses that accompanied their first gesticulations now appears foreign, incomprehensible yet dangerous, like a veiled threat.
Hence the caution, care, and confusion with which Mikan arranges and manipulates the music. For a good part of the time he dwells in a conflicted state. At one end of the spectrum, he wants to decipher and find a certain intimacy with the material. This is evidenced by pieces in which Mikan tries more overtly to mould and tease the material into tense, angular shapes. When this is done, however, certain other pieces don’t fit, the elements never gel, and the compositions appear as a bit of plastic surgery gone awry – thick, droning white noise and mulched electronica echo and bounce off of one another in innumerable ways; loud cascades of swirling sound slashed and cut up by clashing frequencies. At the other end, Mikan approaches them as unapproachable, communicating directly but at a distance, adding and dissolving motifs in the miasma’s so as to bring out their enigmatic quality. With “Flimmerâ€, for instance, he does very little, stalling the structural flow, and allowing the underlying electronic sounds to rise to the surface.
Mind you, outside of this narrative, the ideas don‘t exactly remain fresh at every turn – however little, its spirit wilts when unlit by this light source. Mikan carves out a number of paths within this space, though, and the bracingly gritty alliances that are formed assume many expressions, displaying varying degrees of translucency.
Max Schaefer
“Täuschung†reviewed by France Musique, Tapage nocturne
Davor Mikan est un musicien autrichien d’origine bosniaque, il fait partie de ces expérimentateurs sonores radicaux qui composent sans aucune concession pour nos capacités auditives. Le label Cronica édite courageusement aujourd’hui son deuxième album. Intitulé Täuschung, il présente une suite de 31 vignettes sonores principalement constituées de distorsions, de déflagrations, de déchirures, de silences et de grincements. Une épreuve ou un ravissement c’est selon mais la qualité sonore de l’ensemble est assez remarquable et la très courte durée de chaque pièce permet de reprendre notre souffle entre deux upercuts. En voici un deux extraits le premier, Glattes, fait partie des quelques compositions soft de l’album, le second est intitulé Gespenter und Lippenstift, Ein Kompletes Drama et relève plus de l’expérience sensorielle que de l’écoute traditionnelle.
Eric Serva
“Täuschung†reviewed by Spex
Davor Mikan hätte vielleicht gut daran getan, nicht jedem der 31 Stücke auf »Täuschung« (Crónica) einen Titel zu verpassen: Man sollte sich jedenfalls nicht von einer etwas witzlosen Albernheit wie »Der Eisverkäufer explodiert einfach« von dem Vorhaben abschrecken lassen, sich mit diesem durchweg interessanten, zuweilen sehr spannenden Album auseinanderzusetzen. Was auf den ersten Eindruck oft wie pures, anarchisches Geräusch erscheinen mag, steckt hier nicht selten voller witziger, abrupter Überraschungen, die dieser Musik genauso viel Geist wie eben Chaos attestieren. Als Mischung ist das in besonders gelungenen Augenblicken natürlich ganz unverschämt verführerisch. Obwohl stilistisch sehr unterschiedlich, lässt sich »Täuschung« übrigens ganz hervorragend mit dem letztjährigen Longplayer »Geisteswissenschaften« von A_dontigny vergleichen, der auf einem ähnlich rätselhaften Charme basierte.
Kai Ginkel
“Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom†reviewed by Distorsom
Com um tÃtulo fisgado na realidade intangÃvel das partÃculas sub-atómicas, Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom é o sétimo álbum dos portugueses @C, e o terceiro na sua própria editora. Os ficheiros que estiveram na origem do disco foram registados entre 2002 e 2007, em diferentes locais espalhados por vários paÃses, incluindo apresentações ao vivo, field recordings e trabalho de estúdio, e também na samplagem de outros músicos que com eles se cruzaram em estúdio ou em concertos. O CD reflecte essa diversidade na sua proposta sonora e na estrura pouco convencional. Dos quatro temas que o compõem dois destacam-se pela alta minutagem: o primeiro, “62”, com cerca de 20 minutos e o último, “61” com o dobro dessa duração; entre eles dois curtos interlúdios, “71” e “72”, que não chegam aos 2 minutos. Num processo de composição que os próprios autores compararam ao trabalho de escultura – no modo como a parte interage com o todo – ou com a fotografia – na opção do enquadramento – o álbum pôs questões sobre modelos de realização, formatos, e a própria essência do que é expectável num CD – no fundo, um objecto que se torna em música cada vez que é tocado. Não se contando entre os nomes mais conhecidos na área do microsom, o duo de Miguel Carvalhais e Pedro Tudela tem dado contribuições importantes ao género, e Up, Down, Charm, Strange, Top, Bottom não é, nesse ponto, uma excepção.
“Mus*****c†reviewed by Earlabs
Since January, 2003 Crónica has managed to amass thirty-one releases in its catalog. Now, to celebrate their 5th anniversary, the label’s thirty-second release comes in the form of a free, digital-only download that initiates the beginning of the Unlimited Release Series. Mus****c is a 192-minute, 24 track compilation featuring almost as many Crónica artists. It’s one more instance of the label’s publishing strategy that is focused on “the dissemination of electronic culture†with a special interest towards the distribution of significant electronic/experimental music.
Listening to broad compilations such as Mus****c has its rewards. Not only do you get to hear first-rate sounds from some of your favorite electronic/experimental music artists, it also brings to your attention the music of artists that you might not have never heard of had it not been for the compilation. In the case of Mus****c, I’m only familiar with about one-third of the artists featured here (Janek Schaefer, Lawrence English, The Beautiful Schizophonic, Paulo Raposo, Marc Behrens, TuM‘, Gintas K. and Freiband). In a way it’s like opening an old antique trunk that‘s been stored away for awhile. Not only do you get to rediscover some old memories, you are also provided the opportunity to make some exciting new discoveries (@c, Gilles Aubry, Ran Slavin, Mosaique, paL, Heitor Alvelos, Audiodigest … to name a few ).
So what can you expect to find here? Just about everything under the experimental electronic music umbrella – microsound, scratchy glitch, melodious electronica, readings, vocal experiments, field recordings, manipulated insturment samples, processed piano melodies, dissonant collages, abstract noise, harmonious drones, orchestral ambiance, intense percussive experimentation, etc.
Some of my personal favorite tracks on Mus****c would include Janek Schaefer’s Broadstairs Children’s Piano Trio – which is perhaps the simplest and most unassuming of all of them. Schaefer refers to it as a “innocent little piece†and indeed it is. It consists of looped piano segments extracted from an old 7†and softly textured with a layer of nostalgic vinyl crackle and wear. Also included would be three beautiful ambient pieces: Mosaique’s Tapis, Ran Slavin‘s Summer Clouds, and TuM‘s Sea n° 4 . Tapis consists of cathedral organ recordings whose tones are recursively processed and layered into gorgeous, undulating drones while Summer Clouds is a thick, hazy, cinematic panorama of sound detailed with processed guitar and reversed melodies. TuM’s Sea n° 4 is a stunning piece of shimmering melodies, misty textures, and melancholic atmospheres.
Two vocal-based works have kept my attention. Paulo Raposo’s A Bag of Water features a voice-reading of a work by French writer, philosopher, and literary theorist Maurice Blanchot accompanied by some rather disconcerting electronics. Music for Lonely People contributed by Jorge Mantas, The Beautiful Schizophonic, begins with a young woman’s spoken lament that gradually evolves into a very melancholy and stirring ambient soundscape.
Lawrence English delves out some impressive Musique concréte born of ocean recordings on A Certain Death by Drowning. Splashing ocean waves, recording workings on a ship (grating machinery, hiss and drone of an engine), and some added electronic textures all work together to provide a very saturated ambiance.
For those who might relish some abstract noise variations, Pure’s 643 and Marc Behren’s Website would be good back-to-back listening. Pure’s piece is filled with distorted, cacophonous noise and bent, discordant tones that rise and fall while Behren’s twittering work is glitch in the truest sense – fragmented, noisy, and machinelike. Still noisy but, in addition, warped and shadowy, James Eck Rippie’s Black Tranmission, Pedro Tudela’s Op1s2sm, and Durán Vasquez’s Segunda Natureza (Noite) traverse twisted, darker paths. If your cup of tea is dense, grating ambiance based on room acoustics, then Gilles Aubry’s s6t8r should be more than enough proof that empty rooms aren’t necessarily quiet.
And if this isn’t enough: If you’re up for some driving percussive madness, then Heitor Alveos delivers with his O Corpo é que Paga. As an antidote to this unrelenting piece, o.blaat‘s Snark and Carmel tempers things with some minimal noise, shrill fequencies and scratchy textures. The first half of Gintas K‘sExcerpt from is a fairly potent rhythmic piece that transforms into a beatless composition of electronic sounds and real instrument samples. paL’s shezalready5 manipulate a child’s voice transforming it into some jittery vocal jazz. The duo @c shows two opposing sides of their approaches to sound art and electronic music. 73 is, at the same time, noisy, glitchy, gritty, and abstract while 68 exposes an orchestral/classical ambiance. Vitor Joaquim‘s The Devil is in the Detail is mesmerizing soundtrack music – looped samples, layered with instrumental melodies and vocals, cycle endlessly. For more beautiful, repetitive strutures, Gigantiq’s post-rock tinged A Few Steps from Your Should is sure to please. Also included on the compilation are compositions by Freiband (Frans de Waard)and Cem Güney.
In addition to the excellent music found on Mus****c, the label has also kindly provided links to information about most of the artists in addition to notes from many of the authors themselves concerning their particular contribution. There’s also a PDF that provides the artwork, notes, and track list.
RATED: 10 / 10
Larry Johnson