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The sounds move quietly through fragmented landscapes of field recordings until only resonances and vibrations can be perceived. Transformation processes shift the focus from a documental approach to a highly mesmerizing tapestry merging several layers of attention by theeverchanging juxtaposition of architectural structures with open air observations to create a highly ever shifting but detailed sonic flow.
Through an array of travelling notes, reverberating spaces recorded with binaural and piezo microphones, particular gestures embroided in and against very different materials.
label site: http://www.sirr-ecords.com
reviews
reviews
"These six tracks are as elusive and elegant as their Portuguese
titles (remind me to move to Portugal someday), slowmoving and laminal
though never spacey and ambient, and packed with juicy detail enough
to richly reward repeated listening. The source material used, much
of it culled from field recordings made in the Portuguese countryside,
is diverse and evocative in itself, though astutely manipulated with
Max/MSP software and high-frequency electronic squiggles emanating from
a no-input mixer. Raposo and Santos are not content to let that awesomely
powerful software package dictate proceedings. Insula dulcamara is certainly
one of the most musical electronica outings of recent times, and is
strongly recommended".
—JB www.paristransatlantic.com
these two improvisers bring turgid nanospaces of feral fauna to life
right before your very ears. Unlike their compatriots, who restrict
themselves to the routinely staid confines of staunch academic avant-gardism
or the right angles of trad-jazz philistines, Raposo and Santos are
illustrators bent on establishing a defined mood, pace, and palpable
atmosphere sometimes lacking in the uncommunicative mucking about of
conservatists. Here, it’s permissible to bask in the echo of road
noise, the timber of isotopes emitting radioactive scuzz, the choruses
of EKG monitors left on random repeat, without the categorical weight
that insists you search for signifiers. Superb.
e|i magazine
The album discloses very little about the what, where and how underpinning
Paulo Raposo’s collaboration with Carlos Santos. One you know
it all derives from phonographies, elements rush to place themselves
under the sonic microscope. The echoing emptiness of concrete structures,
the mad rush of a highway, the sounds of wind and water can all be traced
back to the hundreds of different sounds heard on Insula Dulcamara.
Then again, electronic treatments allow us to transform most everything
into most everything else, so maybe Raposo and Santos are playing with
our ears, creating comfort zones where there should be none and turning
highly familiar places into alien landscapes. Insula Dulcamara is an
album of soft sound art. It is gentle on the ear and relatively easy
to get into, yet it requires the listener full attention to stay in
focus. Become distracted and it fades into the background and turns
into an undifferentiated soundscape. Keep your listening eye on the
music, scrutinize it and it reveals innumerable hues and shades, tells
opaque stories and leaves you with the impression of having lived an
enriching peaceful moment. The music is never suggestive enough to be
cinematic, which turns out to be the album’s biggest strength.
Francois Couture, All music guide
Dall'estremità satellitare del Portogallo, con sede a Lisbona,
l'intraprendente etichetta Sirr-ecords convalida il primo promettente
lavoro elettroacustico su cd di Paulo Raposo e Carlos Santos, prodighi
e diligenti progettisti di estatiche barricate di 'musica dall'ambiente'
(e non 'per l'ambiente'). In "Insula Dulcamara" riescono così
a centellinare e a dispensare terapeutiche profusioni di note ondulate
nell'iniziale "Polen", mentre in "Reflux" ci impartiscono
istantanee ascensionali in un habitat dissolvente e coalizzato. La raffinatezza
lampeggiante della conclusiva
"Venice" riesce a coadiuvare l'ospitalità di sonorizzazioni
penetranti ed interrate. Questo superbo lavoro omette la speculazione
plastica di una certa scuola elettroacustica del passato, e potenzia
l'innovazione sostanziale nel cratere della musica sperimentale europea
di questo primissimo frammento di secolo. Raposo e Santos sono da apprezzare
per il loro proficuo impegno e la loro gratificante serietà;
a loro indirizziamo i nostri sentiti ringraziamenti.
Maurizio Bianchi,.idbox
Together they explore the depths of micro cosmos in sound in a world
filled with cracks, clicks, cuts, processed feedback and much more.
I have no idea what their input is, but my best guess is that they have
a whole bunch of field recordings at hand. Hard to trace any recognizable
sound in there, but the abstractions work really well. It's not that
these two composers have done an incredible new work per se with a brilliant
new look on the future of electronic music, but overall it's a good
and solid work of serious microsoundings.
Franz de Waard, Vital Weekly