{"id":10574,"date":"2020-06-15T09:25:24","date_gmt":"2020-06-15T08:25:24","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=10574"},"modified":"2020-07-02T10:20:06","modified_gmt":"2020-07-02T09:20:06","slug":"sirias-boa-lingua-reviewed-by-fluid-sonic-fluctuations","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=10574","title":{"rendered":"S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by Fluid Sonic Fluctuations"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Welcome to review number 113 on Fluid Sonic Fluctuations in which today I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m featuring the fairly recently released album by S\u00c3\u00adria titled Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua. I received this album as a review copy linking to a Bandcamp download code from the Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica label. Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica is the label which actually inspired me to start this blog and over the last two years I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve often featured and reviewed various Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica releases both new and old on this blog. Just like I did with Quantum Natives I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll give a bit of a description of Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica both for people who haven\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t checked out the previous reviews as well as keeping in line with my now even more expanded review style. Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica is a Portuguese mixed media label founded by a group of sound artists, experimental musicians and audiovisual artists that include Miguel Carvalhais (who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s most in charge of the label nowadays and has mastered and designed many of its releases), Pedro Tudela, who both form the duo @c, an immersive sound art and abstract experimental music project that often utilises field recordings and collaged abstract musical and non-musical sounds to create immersive cinematic experiences based on a philosophical attitude to sound as well as deep listening into various sonic environments. I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve reviewed various @c works on this blog before. Other founding members of Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica include experimental musician Pedro Almeida (Pal) and visual artist Lia who uses custom programming to create her moving and captured abstract visuals. Quite matching in spirit to @c\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sound works Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s releases form an ever-continuing chronology of sound, music and noise on various formats including cassette tape, free download, CD and limited edition vinyl releases. Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s discography is a mixture of Sound Art pieces, often conceptual and free-spirited experimental music and Electro-Acoustic Improvisation as well as inventive and often enjoyable forays into composed field recordings and the more arty side of Noise. Now let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s have a look at the contents of the review copy of Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua by S\u00c3\u00adria that I received. The download I received includes the album cover artwork in good resolution, the 9 album tracks in 24-bit\/44.1kHz high resolution audio as well as a PDF file that contains the album\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s tracklist, credits, release description and liner notes. The liner notes by S\u00c3\u00adria herself give a good impression of the concept and sonic approach S\u00c3\u00adria used when she recorded the 9 pieces that feature on the album with improvisation that goes beyond simply performing and an element of deep introspection being key elements to this album\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s development. A nice short text that you can read alongside checking out the music. What is of interest for now is the background of S\u00c3\u00adria and the other artists who contributed to the music or whose music S\u00c3\u00adria sampled \/ manipulated to create her music. First of all, S\u00c3\u00adria herself, is a solo project by Portuguese sound artist and experimental musician Diana Combo. As also introduced by the PDF files, S\u00c3\u00adria is an extension of Diana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s other music project EOSIN, a project that mixes Turntable Music style experimentation, field recordings and other sound sources to create at times eerie and mysterious abstract sonic images, S\u00c3\u00adria mixes this approach with Diana\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals which in the case of Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua she doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t manipulate that much but mostly works as a main thread carrying the pieces of music, often using (traditional) Folk songs or as in some pieces on this album rather expressive (wordless) vocals sometimes using an invented language. Under the name S\u00c3\u00adria Diana has released two albums on Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica, has appeared on compilations on Tropical Twista Records and Discrepant and has created a remix for Sontag Shogun released on Youngbloods. Tiago Martins has done \u00e2\u20ac\u0153post-production\u00e2\u20ac\u009d of the album at his own Fisgastudio, which as I could hear it on the album consists of the connecting the songs together as well as nicely balancing out S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals with the instrumentation of her pieces. Miguel Carvalhais did the mastering for this album, which like other masters he did for releases I previously reviewed is rather crisp and clear sounding, a notch compressed in this case perhaps though, but it does keep the vocals quite on the foreground and it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s not reducing the balance of the instrumentation of the music too much and indeed Miguel also created the artwork for this release which features photos by S\u00c3\u00adria herself of this subtly painted statue of a nude woman which is not quite matching my own interpretation of the music as you will soon notice but does form nice striking imagery that does encompass the general surreal ambience of the album quite well. Amongst the sources of songwriting, samples and recordings S\u00c3\u00adria used in her pieces we find that first song Can\u00c3\u00a7\u00c3\u00a3o do Gato is a version of a song that Tiago Pereira recorded for his continuing project A M\u00c3\u00basica Portuguesa a Gostar Dela Pr\u00c3\u00b3pria which documents Portuguese folk songs as sung by local citizens through his audio and video recordings. Nos Montes was remixed by @c who have released albums on labels like Variz, Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica, Fuga Discos and Grain Of Sound, have been featured on albums and compilation released by labels like Loop, AntmanuvMicro and Variz and are also credited on releases on Dead Motion Records, Ilse and a free Edition Der Standard release. Senhora dos Rem\u00c3\u00a9dios is a version of a song sang by Portuguese singer Catarina Chitas and features a sample from Portuguese mixed media artist Maile Colbert. Belgian Shepherd is a remix of a track of the same title by Portuguese experimental music artist Rui P. Andrade of his 2017 album All Lovers Go To Heaven, originally released on ACR. Rui has released albums using his own name on labels such as BR\u00c3\u02dcQN, Etched Traumas, Haze and Colectivo Casa Amarela, has appeared on releases on Darker Days Ahead, a compilation by Indie Rock Mag, a split EP on Enough Records. Rui\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s credits includes musical work on releases on Zigur Artists, Pale Blue and Warm Winters Ltd. Rui nowadays makes music under his alias Canadian Rifles which he mostly releases on his own Eastern Nurseries tape label. Through S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remix (originally released on the Island Fever compilation by Portuguese experimental music label Colectivo Casa Amarela) I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve already caught some glimpses of Rui\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s sound work and based on the strong bassy resonant noisy drone elements I heard I can tell his solo works and label output will definitely be worth checking out too. Ay I\u00c5\u0178\u00c4\u00b1\u00c4\u0178\u00c4\u00b1nda is a version of a song as originally sung by Azerbaijani singer N\u00c9\u2122rmin\u00c9\u2122 M\u00c9\u2122mm\u00c9\u2122dova. Finally, For Gh\u00c3\u00a9dalia and Boa-Lingua feature recordings made by Los Ni\u00c3\u00b1os Muertos which is a duo made up of Portuguese electric guitar improviser and experimentalist Andr\u00c3\u00a9 Tasso (who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s also part of the big Ensemble MIA, an international collective of experimental musicians and improvisers who participated in the Encontro de M\u00c3\u00basica Improvisada de Atouguia da Baleia organised in May 2016) and Bruno Humberto (a conceptual artist in a wide array of fields in contemporary arts whose works often use the location of the installation or performance as part of the artwork and who also utilised absurdism in interesting manners as part of the Gazpacho Unlimited theatre group). Now let\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s dive into Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s music and sonic imagery.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua starts with the piece Can\u00c3\u00a7\u00c3\u00a3o do Gato which quite perfectly introduces the sonic imagery that this album conjured up in my mind which is that of a wandering soul on a mysterious journey who encounters all kinds of strange rituals and at times dystopian Industrial environments. The piece feels like we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re inside a circle watching an eerie entrancing ritual happen, with S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals working as if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re the chant forming the ritual itself, combined with the gong like percussion which emits a bassy and resonant but also quite wavy continuous droning and helps to create that nocturnal mysterious atmosphere. The song itself sounds more uplifting than the eerie gong drones suggests which makes for a great intriguing juxtaposition of musical elements and the filtered walkie-talkie noise like rhythm in the first half of the piece adds a bit of surrealism to the piece as it feels quite like a small undefined cloud drifting by, momentarily obscuring the ritual. S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocal performance itself also got some great details in it too, as she holds the notes of each repeated melodic phrase as if they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re looped and also giving the song a bit of sharp resonant edge, very nice to hear. Afterwards we travel into darker, more dystopian territory with Nos Montes which features S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s wordless vocals and various layers of (field recording) manipulations, loose percussion, warbled pitch adjusted vinyl records as well as eerie glassy crystallised textured and choppy fluttering bits of Noise swirling around in the centre of the stereo image as well as as between the left and right channels in a subtle manner. Our aforementioned wandering soul has now arrived in an Industrial landscape in which alien machinery seems to be ever whirring, squeaking and clicking, with the workers in this factory or perhaps even simply a workshop appear to be processing glimmering minerals which radiate vivid blue-tinted rainbows. Warbled voices and strangely dropping tones feel like the wandering soul is slowly getting both frightened and confused by her surroundings, her wordless singing feeling like a soft lullaby like song she sings to comfort herself. Her voice distorts and repeats as the environment changes and while the music follows more of a slow evolution of texture rather than reaching a real climax, the various details and new sounds fading in through the layers of Industrial sound make the immersive sonic experiments that much richer. Like many of the pieces on this album, Nos Montes is connected quite directly to its following piece with the jester like tambourine pattern at the end smoothly moving into the beginning of the following track Senhora dos Rem\u00c3\u00a9dios. @c\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s (remix) contribution to Nos Montes sounds a bit more metallic than I heard before from the Portuguese duo and is a bit more subtle in this case with many of the sonic layers sounding like directly from S\u00c3\u00adria herself. The depth, panning and immersive acoustic effects definitely make me think of @c\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work in a more direct manner, but I can say that this mixture of contributions to one piece of music definitely works quite seamless instead of being a piece where you can clearly hear \u00e2\u20ac\u0153another artist joined as a collaborator\u00e2\u20ac\u009d so excellent work in here indeed. Following track Senhora dos Rem\u00c3\u00a9dios uses a sample by Maile Colbert (possibly a field recording) sounding like hissy wind and we can hear the return of the gong percussion from Can\u00c3\u00a7\u00c3\u00a3o do Gato at the start of the piece, blending with jester tambourine rhythm. This piece feels quite like our wandering soul has reached a more quiet part of the factory \/ workshop where we can only hear the hiss of pipes leading to the machinery in the main hall. S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s way of singing the song makes it sound quite ghostly and a bit like a lament, the stereo panned delay effect also adds this feeling of being inside the mind of the wandering soul. The second voice in the song feels like the wandering soul is imagining this second voice as a memory from a time long ago. A sweet introspective piece of music which does retain that nice Industrial edge the album has in a great manner. Belgian Shepherd then follows, a quite minimalist piece in which S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals feature in a more subtle manner than other the other tracks on Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua. Now it feels like the wandering soul has moved to another spot in the factory, one in which distant sounds of machinery can be heard. Featuring distorted rhythmic glitch bass, a scraping mechanical resonant metallic drone, as well as burst of dust-laden steam and distant clanging metal poles and racks the Industrial landscape where our wandering soul finds herself has become a bit less archaic and morphed into a more efficient, cold and high-tech sci fi type of gears. Additional excellent details to the piece are the entrance in which high pitched glitched tones as well as a metallic violin like glassy screeches seem to introduce the wandering soul\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s desperation as she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s trying to find a way out of this dark landscape, her warm wordless vocals being both cries for help and again a means to try to calm herself down and focus. A great mixture of contemporary minimalist Glitch elements and classic Industrial textures from what I can hear in the piece, Rui P. Andrade\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s original version of this piece of which we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re now hearing S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remix must be a fine entrancing piece of Drone \/ Noise work as all the textures as well as rich manipulations of the elements suggest the source material (which S\u00c3\u00adria also added on in this remix, which should be noted) definitely has some great creativity and an inspired personal touch to it too. Great work. Afterwards in Yar\u00c4\u00b1n the wandering soul has finally got out of the factory and returned to the mysterious ritual we saw before which has now progressed. Featuring long long resonating and decaying cymbal droning which is rich in many eerie and filtered sounding overtones as well as an additional layer of low (synth) frequencies which create a brooding rumbling foundation of the piece the ritual like nature of this piece is much darker. Yet S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals are quite uplifting and positive sounding, with her voice overtaking the darkness more in this case than becoming encompassed within it. The double tracking of her vocals does create these curious sonic phenomena however, like her voice detaches itself from her as a separate second \u00e2\u20ac\u0153out of body\u00e2\u20ac\u009d entity and swirls around within the diffuse flowing liquid tonal mass of the ritual music. A few rays of sunlight are shining through the clouds of the morning to come for the wandering soul but the water drops at the end of the piece predict that the ominous events she encounters aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t over yet, with the room acoustic of the field recording suggesting a narrow hollow space she soon finds herself in, perhaps a dungeon. Danse Macabre, the piece that follows is quite self-explanatory based on the titled. Indeed the piece feels quite like the sonic depiction of ghosts dancing around in a circle in the dark night. In this case however, it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s obviously the wandering soul who\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s growing more and more confused and frightened by feelings that she can\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t escape this strange world of mysterious ancient rituals and dystopian cold Industry all that easily. The piece feels quite \u00e2\u20ac\u0153classic\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in that it has a mostly pure Ritual Ambient sound with a lot of eerie resonant slow percussion rhythms, droning vocals and strange mouth sounds with which she creates strange laughing and screeching noises and spooky wails. However there are also little bits of crackling Noise hidden in the background as well with which S\u00c3\u00adria does underline her signature sound in this piece, they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re equally eerie in that they\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re so \u00e2\u20ac\u0153light\u00e2\u20ac\u009d in the sonic imagery that you might even mistake them for rustling leaves or tree branches outside your house (this is especially the case on headphones). Further details that are particularly great about this piece are the highly resonant droning overtones mixed with the hollow water drops in the beginning of the piece creating some extra eerie gloom as well as the way S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals form their own texture and intensely droning tone at the end of the piece, a very immersive listening experience once again. Ay I\u00c5\u0178\u00c4\u00b1\u00c4\u0178\u00c4\u00b1nda follows with a similar kind of Ritual Ambient kind of ambience fading through the water drop sounds into nicely rising and falling waves of gong resonances backed by tinkling cymbals. Our wandering soul appears to have escaped her gloom and is now walking towards a beach with the aforementioned gong resonances feeling like the eerie gloom still surrounding her until the point that some lovely hollow, wooden like turntable needle and mechanism manipulations enter sounding a bit like rowing pans for that nice notch of surrealism in the mix. S\u00c3\u00adria performs the song Ay I\u00c5\u0178\u00c4\u00b1\u00c4\u0178\u00c4\u00b1nda (as originally sung by N\u00c9\u2122rmin\u00c9\u2122 M\u00c9\u2122mm\u00c9\u2122dova) with much positive emotion and there\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s some lovely spacey delay effect on her vocals again but what I like even more about this piece is the way the piece\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s subtly moving drone moves into sonic imagery involving soft \u00e2\u20ac\u0153caressing\u00e2\u20ac\u009d vinyl crackles and the sound of the sea, the swirling waves of water carrying our wandering soul to what appears to be an exit of the fever dream like landscapes she find herself in. The vinyl crackles also appear to hint at the subconscious meaning of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153this is all just memories, you\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re not actually experiencing this in real life\u00e2\u20ac\u009d. Very intriguing. For Gh\u00c3\u00a9dalia then is a piece which is a bit more abrasive for its first half featuring screechy high pitched feedback tones but does flow into a more subtle kind of ambience afterwards. Dedicated to the cult Avant-Garde Folk experimentalist Gh\u00c3\u00a9dalia Tazartes the piece does indeed recall the curious kind of mixture of Noise, Folk and Tribal like elements I remember from listening to one of his albums a long time ago. This is also a piece which does move a bit out of the flow of the pieces that came before it as it features some more abstract experimentation within it. S\u00c3\u00adria is performing ornamental wordless vocals in this piece mixed with additional filtered vocal drones making for curious swirling drone around her. She also creates clicky bass drum like percussion using her mouth (though this seems to be more like a layering of two elements in fact). Curious are also the organ like tones in the first half of the piece. Whilst moving into a different kind of textural style, I can still apply my imagined imagery of the wandering soul to this piece as being a ritual she created and is performing on her own. This piece uses recordings by Andr\u00c3\u00a9 Tasso and Bruno Humberto and I can definitely say that based on what I found about Andr\u00c3\u00a9, the guitar Noise elements are created by him and add some great rawness in terms of texture to the piece, very nice. Final piece Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua puts more focus on the recordings of guitar feedback manipulation as well as some sweet woodblock \/ stick percussion courtesy of Andr\u00c3\u00a9 Tasso and Bruno Humberto in terms of instrumentation with S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s vocals being more like chanted mantras. The instrumental backing has a great physical touch to it in terms of texture, with the guitar also sounding a bit like an alarm; S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s calm vocals give the impression of our wandering soul slowly waking up in her bed in the morning with her thoughts still going through a bit of a confusing haze (the feedback instrumentation) and her wake up alarm having an oddly harsh sound to her ears. Still, she\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s safe and sound and thereby we also come to our listening journey of S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s excellent Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua. I awards Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua a Polar Vision at the frequency of a wandering soul travelling through possibly imagined landscapes full of mysterious rituals, dystopian Industrial landscapes and a surreal experience of past memories. The album\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s consistent flow of often vocal lead pieces of rich experimental music make for a great listening experience in S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s personal, inspired sonic world that blends \u00e2\u20ac\u0153physical\u00e2\u20ac\u009d Noise experimentation, Ritual Ambient influences, an inventive approach to using her voice in her music and a great feel for the cinematic side of Sound Art and texture based ambiences. This is a great recommended listen for fans of the more musical side of Sound Art, experimental approaches to Ritual Ambient, Turntable Music as well as a more varied approach to using Noise and Free Improvisation in more subtle manners. S\u00c3\u00adria\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s song based approach also makes the music more accessible for listeners who aren\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t very familiar with experimental music in general. Definitely get this album.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

You can order Boa-L\u00c3\u00adngua by S\u00c3\u00adria as a limited edition cassette tape and download from the Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica Bandcamp page here: https:\/\/cronica.bandcamp.com\/album\/boa-l-ngua<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

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