blog.Crónica

Le note di copertina indicano che quasi tutti i titoli di “Musicamorosa” sono frasi tratte dal romanzo “La prisonnière” del ciclo proustiano “À la recherche du temps perdu” e il sound-designer Jorge Mantas in arte The Beautiful Schozophonic ci tiene a sottolineare le affinità tra la figura di Marcel Proust, rintanato a scrivere tra le pareti insonorizzate del suo appartamento paragino di Boulevard Haussmann, e quella contemporanea del compositore elettronico completamente solo davanti al laptop nel buio della propria stanza.

A tali riferimenti letterari – sublimati in “La lectrice” dal recitato di Cécile Schott aka Colleen – corrispondono lunghi piani sequenza di drones polverizzati che si dipanano in romantiche tessiture attraverso correnti ora circolari ora ascensionali. Movimenti tendenzialmente a-ritmici dai quali emergono il respiro glitch di “Zéphir marin, féerique comme un clair de lune”, gli sciabordii digitali di “Les oiseaux qui dorment en l’air”, gli echi di chitarra elettrica di “On se souvient d’une atmosphère…”, le spore di folk acustico di “Dans la chambre magique d’une sibille”, gli scampanelli ovattati in melassa ambient di “Un jardin ancore silencieux avant le lever du jour”.

A chiudere il disco i tredici minuti e mezzo approntati da @c su materiale di Jorge Mantas tra sibili scomposti ed infiltrazioni di bleeps.

Guido Gambacorta

O trabalho do artista sonoro Jorge Mantas, aka The Beautiful Schizophonic, foi acrescentado de um novo capítulo, intitulado Musicamorosa. Mantas mergulha agora na procura do denominador comum entre as emoções próprias do romantismo de Marcel Proust, de À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, dos aspectos relacionados com o amor romântico, sofrido e melancólico, e a estética musical que o designer sonoro prossegue neste tempo – a mesma cumplicidade na solidão melancólica do acto criativo, na sua dimensão psicológica e introspectiva. A técnica de The Beautiful Schizophonic utiliza o laptop para criar drones ambientais circulares e micro-sons de progressão horizontal, processos de transição em contínuo que se vão metamorfoseando em diversos composto de fragmentos melódicos, partículas em suspensão e poeira sintética, granulado fino e estaladiço. Os sons são montados em elaboradas sequências de feição impressionista, frases longas como as de Proust, reconhecíveis através da memória e percepção, por referência a fontes naturais (guitarra, voz humana, respiração – Colleen recita La Lectrice – água), e outros que, não existindo no mundo orgânico e material, apenas na imaginação do autor, dele passam a fazer parte como por osmose, preservando uma interessante dualidade antigo (preexistente) / moderno (inventado). Por outro lado, há na música de The Beautiful Schizophonic um profundo respeito pelo silêncio interior dos corpos sombrios. Deles, só se percebem os contornos difusos que chegam até nós como brisa suave. Musicamorosa consegue apreender e comunicar a aura romântica da solidão interior do indivíduo no acto de criação. Nessa medida, é um bom trabalho de sonorização de ideias e emoções, muito mais do que manifestar o aparente encontro da literatura com a electrónica. Sons e memórias de um passado futuro, real e imaginário. Todos os títulos das peças são retirados de À la Recherche du Temps Perdu, de Marcel Proust. Colaborações de Paulo Silva (Arcano Zero), José Luís Merca (Matéria Prima), Tobias Strahl (Dies Natalis), Christina Vantzou (grafismo) e @c (Pedro Tudela e Miguel Carvalhais).

Musique morose. Voilà bien un qualificatif qui ne s’applique pas à la musique du portugais Jorge Mantas qui, sous l’identité de The BEautiful Schizophonic produit une musique ambiante et intelligente, dont l’influence majeure se trouve non pas dans la musique, mais dans la littérature, les classiques de Poe et Dante ayant plus de sens pour Mantas que les derniers développements de la scène électronique. Pour Musicamorosa, il s’inspire d’a la Recherche du Temps Perdu, de Marcel Proust, auquel il emprunte les titres de ses morceaux, mais aussi une certaine ambiance surannée, qui s’exhale des drones fins et filés, soigneusement mis en place, dont The Beautiful Schizophonic observe la croissance et le déclin avec l+oeil d’un entomologiste. Parfois presque proche du darm ambient, parfois plus mélancolique, lorsqu’une guitare se joint aux sonorités utilisées, ailleurs superbement minimaliste sur un titre parlé par Colleen et depuilée de tout autre élément, ou cristalin et onirique, Musicamorosa est un album dont la beauté, pour être calme, n’en est pas moins envoutânte, que l’on soit ou non sensible au charme de Proust.

Jean-François Micard

The first wave of slowly swelling melancholic loop-drone upon starting the disc confirms any preconception one might have concerning the tone of this latest release by The Beautiful Schizophonic (Jorge Mantas). The second wave of likewise loop-droning undulating decay (track 2) consecutively goes on to undermine these first impressions, and thereby confirms the preconception concerning a pertinent dualism pertaining to the artists work (already pronunciated in the “schizophony” of Jorge Manta’s moniker). Consecutive tracks only go further to annul any clear-cut ideas concerning the emotional and ‘conceptual’ aims of this release.

This, then, is not a release single-mindedly aiming at pleasing the affective synapses or the romantical lobe of the human brain. There is definitely a sense of the beatific agony, a dark-romantic thread surging through the whole of this CD; but there is way too much itching, especially on any conceptual level, for this release to be unequivocally deemed ‘beautiful’, ‘romantic’, or even ‘melancholic’. What we do have here, is, to my sensibilities, a truly puzzling, truly intriguing mixture of deep and light ambiences, textures and fissures to appeal to both the heart and mind.

I find my mind turning back to the film ‘Pan’s Labyrinth’ which creates an incessant tension between a fairytale world wherein the youthful protagonist finds herself evermore immersed and the reality of war and torture of mid-40’s fascist Spain. During the course of the film, these two worlds come more and more into conjunction with each other only to in the end become radically disjointed again, leaving a gaping cleavage to be bridged by the mind and feelings of the spectator who is in effect left dangling over this abyss. A same ‘dramatic structure’ seems to me to underly the design of this release here currently under review. There exists a stark discrepancy between the dark abysmal atmospherics, the almost misplaced and seemingly blooper-like ‘outtakes’ and finally the truly heavenly spheres harmonizing with romantic, almost Dante-like sensitivity between which the different tracks on this release undulate.

I don’t know Proust’s oeuvre enough to judge whether this internal, both emotional and esthetic tension reflects an intrinsic characteristic of this author’s work as a whole. I do know enough biographical data, though – the author, bed-ridden due to severe pulmonary and other ailments, either freely choosing or destined for dedicating his creative genius to the recreation of a world which filtered through his neurasthenic sensibilities became a monument to both the most discreet and the most extravagantly lived out individualism – to consider this tension-ridden (or even tension-wracked) character that Musicamorosa evinces as attaining to at least a moment of truthfulness in the representation of these circumstances that surrounded the genesis of Proust’s oeuvre. In an almost Marxist fashion here becomes tangible an unsurpassable chasm dividing the material circumstances which surround the genesis of this great oeuvre from its ideological, esthetic surplus that constitutes the artistic product itself.

This (non)relationship between these different levels is not explicitly thematized in Jorge Manta’s remarks accompanying the release on the Crónica webpage; but his comments on his intentions (his fantasies?) with this release – inferring the analogous circumstances under which the art of both the contemporary laptop artist and Proust (both sitting in solitude, darkness and silence) comes into being – lead to the question as to how such self-willed solitude can become the generative grounds for any work so explicitly dedicated to (romantic) love. Not without any ambiguity, so it appears. (In this regard there are both analogies and discrepancies with the dismissal of the world – in Catholicism basically considered as God’s beneficent creation, aye, a fount of revelation itself – within monastic orders.) But here it is specifically this ambiguity itself which might characterize the true artfulness of both Proust and Jorge Mantas – an ambiguity which, according to Socrates’s parable with which he entertains his pupils in the Symposium, likewise lies at the heart of love itself. Love itself is likewise characterized by its dual nature of both flying towards and fleeing from its beloved.

This posture of the solitary, then, which can be considered the true theme of Musicamorosa, comes at least halfway to attaining what is classically termed ‘true love’.

Mark Pauwen

Un romántica sonata de drones y electrónica, en uno de los mejores discos editados hasta el momento por el sello portugués Crónica (que por fin está disponible en Suburban-lab). Un trabajo de frágil belleza y profundamente trabajado, en el su autor, Jorge Mantaas, se ha inspirado en la obra de Marcel Proust (algunas de cuyas frases en “A la búsqueda del tiempo perdido” titulan los temas de este disco) para dar forma a un sonido que recuerda al de William Basinski, sobre todo por las estrategias a partir de las que se aborda la música. Abstracción intangible, pero al mimso tiempo sensualidad y atmósferas morosas (como el título del disco) que permiten perderse en los propios pensamientos. Para los avezados lectores de Proust, Cécile Schott aka Coleen lee a mitad del disco un fragmento de “La lectrice”, dando con el tono justo, entre la tristeza melancólica y la alegría de vivir, que inspira este gran trabajo.

Noch eine Art Hörspiel, jedoch voluminöser, wattiger und wolkiger: das Projekt von Jorge Mantas steigt bevorzugt in vergangene Kunstwelten ein, um Verbindendes herauszuschöpfen, gleich ob Poe, Dante oder C. D. Friedrich. Diesmal ist es Marcel Proust geworden, dessen ’Recherche’ in den letzten Jahren eine Hauptinspiration für Mantas war. Die Idee, dass Liebe nur in Trauer gelebt werden kann, geht für ihn über den puren Ästhetizismus weit hinaus. Der lonely Laptop-Bastler sah sich sehr mit dem manisch-isolierten Schreiber verbunden, um die Fragmente der Realität mit dem Fokus auf die unerbittliche Konkretion der Affekte neu zu verbinden. Der Grundvibe dieses Audios ist ruhig, dicht und mysteriös, die Toncluster wandern zwischen Nebel und Klarheit hin und her wie Wolkenbänke, die sich verdichten und auflösen.

Im Schatten blühen junge Mädchen pink ? Jorge Mantas jedenfalls ließ sich durch Proust inspirieren, untermischt mit von Tristesse und Abschied geprägten Liebesgeschichten von Poe bis Wond Kar-Wai, Mädchenbildern von Waterhouse und Rosetti bis Rohmer und Deville, aber auch den Erotika-Ikonen der Fotografen Guido Argentini und Roy Stuart. Mein erster Eindruck – Bilitis – war also gar nicht so abwegig. Ein Computermönch träumt von Sensuality & Sadness und schon treibt Sublimation delikate Blüten. Gefühlskritisch bekommt im Halbschatten einer künstlerischen Sensibilität gleich etwas Sublimes. Musik als Geliebte, umsponnen von einer Delectatio morosa, der Lust an sündigen Vorstellungen ? Fast alle Titel stammen aus Prousts Die Gefangene. Colleen spielt dazu La Lectrice und alles wird gleich “Pariserisch”. Nicht Lukas, der Hl. Antonius ist der Schutzpatron der Künstler. Das ist nicht halb so sarkastisch, wie Dionysius als Nothelfer gegen Kopfschmerzen. Ich schwanke, während Mantas mollige Drones mich umschweifen und verführerisch ihre Gestalt wechseln, zwischen Kopfzerbrechen und Gedankenverbrechen – wie denn auch anders, wenn eine Musik gleichzeitig so schön, fatal und schizophon daher kommt. Ach wie so schwelgerisch öffnet der Laptop seine Speicher, auf deren Grund man auf Wagners Liebestod und Debussy stoßen würde. Was gerade noch knirschte wie Sand oder schäumte wie die Brandung um Aphrodites Knöchel, ist nun blinkende Gitarre, dann wieder eingedampftes orchestrales Rauschen. Als Encore folgt ein ausführlicher Remix durch @c, schnüffelnd wie eine Maus, die rosige Nackedeis wittert.