Category Archives: Jorge Valente

And here’s the second part of New Music From Portugal. For a review of the other artists see the previous post. David Maranha, along with brother André and Patricia Machiás, curates Osso Exótico, Portugal’s long-running response to Young’s New York-based MELA Foundation. OE has explored all manners of droneological implements, ranging from church organs to glass bottles, over the course numerous albums. Discmen is the creation of Portuguese composer José António Moura. Electro Flan are Gonçalo Falcão and Gonçalo Freitas. Ernesto Rodrigues has been playing the violin for 30 years and in that time has played all genres of music ranging from contemporary music to free jazz and improvised music, live and in the studio. His main interest shifted towards contemporary improvised and composed music. The relationship with his instruments is focused in sonic and textural elements. Electronic music was an early influence on his approach to violin playing, which challenges traditional romantic concepts of the violin/viola through use of preparations and micro tuning. Active in different settings on the Portuguese scene for free improvised music, both as a collaborator and in leading his own groups. Music for Dance, Cinema, Video and Performance. Has created the record label Creative Sources Recordings in 1999, which mainly concentrates on releasing experimental and electro-acoustic music. Victor Afonso aka Kubik is a portuguese musician living in Guarda, a city lying near Serra da Estrela (Star Mountain) at some 1000 meters above the sea level. He has been releasing music under the name Kubik (2 albums) as well as in many other projects. Oblique Musique and Metamorphosia albums recorded as Kubik showed up a musician deeply inspired by cinema and also by a great variety of music, from eastern europe folk to contemporary drumnbass. This alloy allowed Kubik to develop a very personalized and surrealistic sound, which defies the listener imagination with a wave of references sequenced in a way that take shape in the form of musical pieces. Infinite Territory is his new release. It is a departure from earlier works, because here Victor Afonso decided to explore electronic music more close to the IDM genre. It is obvious from Infinite Territory that musicians like Amon Tobin or Aphex Twin play an important role as sources of inspiration. This EP is very well balanced between ambient soundscapes and bursts of drillnbass, showing Kubik at the maximum of his skills and inspiration. From phantasmagorical pieces like Bona Fide, to kinetically unstable tracks like Infernis, Plus Ultra and the surrealistic Non Hilum (perhaps the track more related with his previous works), Kubik shows up his personal view of what electronic music (or IDM) can be, with a great capability to create images in the mind of the listener, rather than being purely another kind of dance music. Infinite Territory is therefore a kind of a soundtrack of a lost science-fiction movie, lost in the outskirts of the galaxy (or, more precisely, of the mind), exploring lost territories and lost spirals that liewithin the more pristine forces of nature.» Since 1989, the Portugal avant garde ensemble Osso Exótico have created a stunning body of work. Current members are André Maranha, David Maranha and Patricia Machás, but besides the recordings, very little historical information can be found about the group. Rather, the music speaks for itself. Percussionist Z’EV, who has spent the better part of 40 years finding ways to coax sound out of material, and then creating a mystic cacaphony out of it, also uses sound as communication. Together, this grouping produces quite a statement, as sound becomes something unexplained by words, yet shared as an experience. For Portuguese saxophonist Rodrigo Amado, improvisation isn’t only a process of making music, but a philosophical, even if practical, cause. His project Lisbon Improvisation Players and other groups he formed, like the trio with Ken Filiano and Carlos “Zíngaro” in “The Space Between”, have as main purpose the idea to open the concept of instant composition to as many perspectives as possible, and that’s why he likes to change partners and situations. With one foot in jazz and the other in free improvisation, what he likes most is to play jazz without any tunes or preconceived structures. So, his improvisation is not free in formal terms, but is free anyway because without determined directions, and that ambiguity is what interests him. With no musical academic background, Amado learned the saxophone playing (alto, C melody, tenor and baritone) since he was 17 years old, either alone, with private teachers or in the jazz school of the Lisbon’s Hot Club. Curious about how other music styles deal with real time and spontaneity, it’s usual to see him playing with, for instance, hip-hip DJs or with electronic experimental musicians. Vinny Golia, Joe Giardullo, Kent Kessler, Paal Nilssen-Love, Mark Whitecage, Dominic Duval and Peter Epstein are among the musicians with whom he played already. Miguel Leiria Pereira was born in Lisbon in 1971, and started his double bass studies at the Lisbon Conservatory with professors António Ferreira and João Panta Nunes. He did undergraduate double bass studies at Academia Nacional Superior de Orquestra (ANSO) with Professor Bernard Madrennes and finished his bachelor degree at the Lisbon Superior School of Music (ESML) under orientation of Professor Yuri Axenov. With a scholarship from the company Grupo Alcântara he took double bass lessons with Professor Gary Karr at his Karrkamp at the University of Victoria (Canada), and with a scholarship from the Portuguese Culture Ministry studied during two years and a half at West Texas A & M University (USA-Texas), and Butler University (USA-Indiana) with Professor David Murray. In 1991 He was awarded first prize at the “Carpe Diem” national music festival (Portugal), in 1994 he was warded first prize in the Portuguese national radio’s Young Musicians Prize Competition (Portugal), and in 1998 he was awarded the second prize at the Butler University Concerto Contest (Indiana-USA). As orchestra musician he collaborated with the Lisbon Metropolitan Orchestra, Portuguese Symphony Orchestra, Lisbon Sinfonieta, Cascais and Oeiras Chamber Orchestra, Amarillo Symphony (Texas), and Butler Symphony (Indiana). As he keeps double bass teaching positions at the Leiria Regional Conservatory (EMOL), the Setúbal Regional Conservatory, Lisbon Music Academy, and Alcobaça Music Academy, Miguel Leiria Pereira performance areas are the double bass solo repertoire, chamber music, orchestra, improvised and other forms of creative music. Since 2005 he became part of the Granular association for experimental art. Américo Rodrigues was born in 1961, in Guarda, Portugal. He has done experimental work with his voice since 1979, when he worked with actress Catherine Dasté in Paris. He is a sound poet with several books and object-poems published. He has participated in musical and vocal improvisation sessions with Carlos Zíngaro, Günter Müller and Silvia Barrios, among many others. He has edited the CDs O despertar do funâmbulo (The Rise of the Funambulist) (2000); Trânsito local, trânsito vocal (Local traffic, Vocal Traffic) (2004) (with Jorge dos Reis; and Aorta tocante (Playing aorta) (2005). In 2003 he edited a record of sound poetry, Escatologia (Eschatology). In 2001 he created two sound-poetry shows, Como um relâmpago and Chamamento (Like Lightning and Calling). He is the artistic director of Teatro Municipal da Guarda. Rodrigues has presented his work at several festivals in Europe and South America. Emidio Buchinho, Sound Designer, Editor and Engineer, Musician, Teatcher. Born in 1963. Lived a happy childhood in Luanda. Dream city by the southeast Atlantic. There, in the seventies, heard pop, rock and local ethnic music in between radio sounds from my father’s workshop. Saw a lot of films at open-air cinemas. With the independence of the Portuguese colonies moved to Setúbal.
 At age 15 commenced as a self-taught guitarist and musician and formed an experimental music project with Vitor Joaquim in 1982. Attended Classical Guitar and Music courses in the Luísa Todi Music and Fine Arts Academy (Portugal) and studied in the Château-Thierry Municipal Conservatory (France). 
In the early nineties completed a Film and Sound Engineering course at the Lisbon Film and Theatre School (Escola Superior de Teatro e Cinema). 
 Took part in various workshops on Structures, Forms and New Technologies in Improvised Music, supervised by Carlos Zíngaro, Peter Kowald and Richard Teitelbaum. 
Participated in concerts and intermedia performances with the likes of Carlos Zíngaro, Günter Müller, Carlos Santos, Otomo Yoshihide, Nuno Rebelo, Rudiger Carl, Manuel Mota, Matt Wand, António Chaparreiro, Mike Beck, Rodrigo Amado, Ben Rubin, Marco Franco, Ulrich Mitzlaff, Adriana Sá, Ludger Lamers, Isabelle Schad, Olga Roriz, Margarida Bettencourt and João Natividade.
 Works on a regular basis in the areas of musical composition, performance and production, sound engineering, editing and design for films, documentaries, art installations, stage plays, dance, performance art, intermedia and television advertising in Portugal, Spain, France, Germany and the UK. Collaborators include Jorge Silva Melo, Pedro Sena Nunes, Fernando Matos Silva, Luís Fonseca, Fernando Lopes, José Barahona, João César Monteiro, Cláudia Bandeira, Paulo Rocha, Sandro Aguilar, Walter Avancinni, Margarida Gil, Jeremy Cooper, Rita Palma, Margarita Ledo, Paulo Mendes, Joana Fernandes, Julião Sarmento, João Onofre, Antonino Solmer, Diamantino Ferreira, Marco Martins, Miguel Coimbra, Gideon Nell, Edson Ataíde, Keith Rowe, Gush, Roof, Silvia Barrios, Greg Moore, Carlos Bica, Bernardo Devlin, Coty Cream, Osso Exótico, Michael Gira, Current Ninety Three, Antony, Simon Finn, Baby Dee, Six Organs of Admittance, Artistas Unidos, Teatro Meridional, Teatro da Cornucópia and Teatro da Comuna. 
As Sound Recordist and Editor for cinema and audiovisual productions, taught at ESTC – Film and Theatre School, ETIC -Technic School of Image and Communication, RESTART – Creativity School and New Technologies and Videoteca Municipal, including various workshops and conferences. 
 Head of Sound and Music Department at ETIC – Technic School of Image and Communication. Director and founding member of the GRANULAR Association. Starting as a free improvisation unit in 1991 with mainly acoustical instruments Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzp! gradually started using electronic and computer instruments. They have also collaborated quite often with video and visual artists on their live performances, coming to what has been described as an “abstract electronic melting pot”… Way Out : New Music From Portugal Vol. 2 was released on cd by AnAnAnA (MMM oo1) in 1999. Again a big thanks to Orbis Tertius for this.

Tracks:

1. David Maranha – Quatro Violinos
2. Manuel Mota – Blue Yodel # 2, Just Get Rid Of Me
3. Discmen – We Are Touch Sensitive
4. Electro Flan – Watkins Lopycat / Leslie Cabinet
5. Rodrigo Amado – Drum ‘n’ Sax
6. Ernesto Rodrigues & Jorge Valente – In Memoriam Wolf Vostell
7. Pedro Leal – O Sonho do Ferreiro
8. Kubik – Marinetti’s Voice
9. Osso Exótico – Para Percussão e Violinos
10. Rodrigo Pinheiro – VI
11. Rodrigo Amado & Miguel Leiria Pereira – RM2
12. Américo Rodrigues – Razia
13. Emídio Buchinho – Treblinka
14. Zzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzzp! – Verão Azul

Link removed on request of AnAnAnA.

enjoy