“X-RUN-4 Prismatique” reviewed by Chain DLK

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Background noises get typically considered a disturbing element of live recordings, but I won’t say the same for this output, capturing a solo improvisational session by German (even if he resides in Lisbon since a long time) cellist and composer Ulrich Mitzlaff in a spacey hall nearby the motorway close to Humberto Delgado Airport in Lisbon under commission of the Portuguese National Civil Engineering Laboratory over two different days (November 30th and December 21st 2014). Besides the typical reverb added by vast spaces, the hissing noise generated by traffic as well as more or less distinguishable sounds of departing and landing airplanes seem to have been fully integrated in the recording as they were (without any treatment), and I’d rather say you could have the feeling that Ulrich’s beloved instrument, as well as the stylistic shaping he evokes by means of it, got sometimes synched to the aural manifestation of human transportation. Covering an almost indistinct range between polka to skronk of free jazz till occasional episodes that could vaguely remind the prodigious counterpoints of Bach’s Cello Suite 1 or even Beethoven’s final parts of some of his more dramatic scores (resurfacing in particular during the central piece, the 20-minutes lasting “4-one”, featuring Beethoven’s just mentioned phrasing between 13th and 14th minute) features occasional percussive elements (mostly found objects and materials), highlighting the feeling of an authentic real-time recorded improvisation together with the performative fits of madness resulting into sudden accelerations of chord tapping and squeaking scratches (almost rendering the image of Ulrich while using his nails on his cello till they begin bleeding) as well as unexpected sparks of harmony. The instrumental eruptions, as well as their bizarre clutching with surrounding noises, could let you imagine that the composer/performer is just putting on an act a sort of dramatic fight between a forgotten cello and the rest of the absent-minded/absent-minding world; they are akin to two aural inputs or attractive poles that could vividly stage a struggle between emotion and apathy in the somehow alienating society we often could experience. Vito Camarretta

via Chain DLK

“Geography” reviewed by Rockerilla

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Continua la sequenza di interessanti pubblicazioni della lusitana Cronica che per l’occasione propone il nuovo lavoro di Vitor Joaquim, ispiratissimo artista portoghese che compone anche per documentari, video installazioni e altro ancora. Quando poi dal vivo non è supportato da immagini, Joaquim ama esibirsi completamente al buio proprio perché vuole stimolare la fantasia e i sensi dei suoi spettatori. Vitor guida nel suo mondo fatto di rarefazioni glitch, ambientazioni isolazioniste con importanti dilatazioni melodiche, proponendosi come l’anello di congiunzione tra Murcof e gli esperimenti melanconici alla Bvdub e Loscil. Questa è proprio una geogra a del suono nel quale perdersi tra rigore cerebrale ed elementi altamente emotivi. UN SIGNOR DISCO. Gianluca Polverari

“6 Elementos”, a new installation by Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais

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“6 Elementos”, a new work by Pedro Tudela and Miguel Carvalhais (aka @c) is opening tomorrow in Porto, in the exhibitions room of the Rectory of the University of Porto. This new piece was commissioned as a part of the program of events for “Espaço, Corpo, Bem-Estar” and will be shown until November 4th.

“Bittersweet Melodies” reviewed by Kathodik

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Album numero undici per il musicista/video artist/film maker israeliano Ran Slavin.
“Bittersweet Melodies” mette in circolo materiali persi e sparsi composti nell’ultima dozzina di anni, lucidati e rimasterizzati.
Una raccolta che nonostante il divario temporale che separa una traccia dall’altra, denota una discreta personalità, non appariscente ma di solida tensione unitaria.
Stratificazione di segnali altamente cinematici, ad inglobare fratture ritmiche, battiti minimali, influssi medio orientali, vaporizzazioni ambient, movenze da exotica alterata, bave di noise granulare ed approccio complessivo low-fi.
Materia al contempo futuribile e arcaica, quasi un crash fra realtà e fiction.
Un discreto campionario di ambientazioni lisergiche, avvolgente e straniante.
Nulla per cui ulular al cielo, ma il potere persuasivo non si discute.
Lo fai girar, e poi di nuovo girar. Marco Carcasi

via Kathodik

New in the Corollaries series: Dawn Scarfe’s “Alone Together”

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“Alone Together” is the ninth release in the series Corollaries, that compiles works resulting from Active Crossover: Mooste, a cross-cultural collaborative residency curated by Simon Whetham and hosted by MoKS, in April and May 2015. All works are composed from material compiled in a collective archive during the project.

Active Crossover: Mooste had a ‘relay’ format, with different groups of artists visiting and documenting the same places at different times, contributing footage of sites and actions to a shared archive.

Along with the conversations and collaborations that took place during these visits, the sense of being alone together could creep in as people dispersed across a landscape, each tuned in to their own recording equipment. Added to this, feelings of missed connection stemmed from anecdotes about the artists that had been and gone or were still to come.

Listening back through the archive can be disorientating, particularly the materials gathered by others from sites I visited. The effect of reviewing these fragments is hallucinogenic: they evoke places that are similar but strangely different from how I think they should be, based on my own experience and mis-rememberings. I hear the same sequence of events rendered through the air that I recorded through a wire. Or a field transformed by variations in the weather and voices of migrant birds passing overhead when I wasn’t there to hear them.

As I listen, I picture myself in the same scene as the other artist, watching them from a distance, trying not to interfere with their recording.

This release is a collage of sounds collected by myself and others that contrasts individual and collective listenings, as well as the tides of stillness and commotion that can drastically change the experience of a place.

“Alone Together” is a free download from Crónica or Bandcamp.

Futurónica 176

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Episode 176 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 30th.

The playlist of Futurónica 175 is:

  1. Simon Cummings, Study Nº 1 (2016, Studies Vol. 1)
  2. Simon Cummings, Study Nº 9 (2016, Studies Vol. 1)
  3. Simon Cummings, Study Nº 5 (2016, Studies Vol. 1)
  4. Simon Cummings, Study Nº 14 (2016, Studies Vol. 1)
  5. Stephan Mathieu, Et sic in infinitum (2016, Radiance III: Black Square for Robert Fludd, Schwebung)

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

“Three-Body Problem” reviewed by Amusio

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Das nunmehr sechzehnte Album der portugiesischen Klang-Extremisten @C fußt auf Agapornis, einem Stück des Marionettentheaters Porto, das sich 2014 dem Leben und Werk der Anaïs Nin widmete. Man wäre gerne dabei gewesen, das Dreikörperproblem des Albumtitels dürfte also metaphorisch zu verstehen sein. Dabei vollzieht sich das Album auf drei Ebenen: Als Bühnenmusik, als deren Rekomposition sowie als die Übertragung des Texts einer Sprechrolle in den rein musikalischen Ausdruck.

Ob sich beim Gedanken ans Marionettentheater nun Heinrich von Kleist, das Kölsche Hänneschen oder die Augsburger Puppenkiste vor dem geistigen Auge manifestieren, mag hinsichtlich der Einordnung und Bewertung von Three-Body Problem unerheblich sein. Zunächst ist die Sorgfalt spürbar, mit der hier zu Werke gegangen wurde, um einer seltenen Transferleistung zu genügen.

So anzunehmen ist, das die Abfolge der Tracks der Chronologie der drei Ebenen Folge leistet, darf ein zunehmend ausstaffiertes Agieren festgestellt werden. Lässt das erste Drittel von Three-Body Problem noch sämtliche Fragen (nach dem Bühnengeschehen) weitgehend offen, entwickelt das Album im weiteren Verlauf seine eigene Story. Und die hat es in sich, auch wenn die nun weiterhin stimulierten Assoziationsketten kaum ein Glied auf Anaïs Nin zu verschwenden scheinen.

Doch: Wie will man das wissen? Und wie kann man wissen, welcher Teleologie @C hier nun Folge leisten? Ohne Rücksprache bleibt das Urteil „l’art pour l’art“ eine potenziell einwandfreie Unterstellung. Profan gesprochen und gewertet bleibt der Hinweis auf eine in sich stets spannend inszenierte Auseinandersetzung mit Stille, Geräusch und Struktur noch der verlässlichste seiner Art. Stephan Wolf

via Amusio

“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