| paulo raposo | bio radio disco press events |
 |
Vitriol 15€ postage paid worldwide |
vitriol is the longstanding project of Paulo Raposo and Carlos Santos. Active since the early nineties in the field of electronic and improvised music, their work is
characterized as abstract and detailed, organic and detached, focusing in a
delicate balance between the experience of space and its musical reorganizing qualities.
'Randonée 0.06' departs with a series of digital manipulative processes over
soundfield recordings from familiar open spaces to create an intricate and
organic soundscape, where coordinates?are erased and de-territorialized,
leaving the listeners' perception?open to find his own (imaginary) space. An
Intimate space.
label site: http://www.sirr-ecords.com
"With a run time of just 20 minutes, Vitriol's work here is a surprising electronic
soundscape with many shifts and nuances. Rich digital tones, sparse
sounds, clicks and crackles mix with various found sounds, creating an
atmosphere of digital detachment and distance. The arrangements are never predictable
and full of details and subtle movements, which makes the listening experience
more rewarding each time I've put this disc in my player. Sounds great; let's
keep our eyes and ears peeled."
Richard di Santo, Incursion Music
A minimalistic trawl of sprawling digital soundfragments on this new and very
promising Portuguese electronic music label. Vitriol are a duo of Paulo
Raposo and Carlos Santos and their work is utterly beguiling. Glitching
loops and scrabbling, unplaceable events are intermingled in a completely sympathetic
and synergistic way; the result is more jagged than most in the genre'
but this isn't noisemusic in the slightest. Organic location recordings
are deliberately Mac-entangled with abstract, emaciated soundscapings;
distant headphone listening juxtaposed alongside walls of swirling viral
electronics.? Randonee 0.06 is a really exciting find of a disc and short
enough to leave you wanting a lot more when it's all over.
The final piece, the title track itself, is an incredible 8 minute outing
(part of the 'Headphone Room' internet project apparently) and at times had me
thinking I was trapped in the hold of some amorphous, semi-conscious
sea-faring vessel.? At other times, it is like nothing more than listening
to the sound of your own body as itdehydrates."
vital weekly
"The crackle of digital glitches pop throughout extended glistening drones stretched
out of organic scrapes, ending up sounding mysterious and sublime."
Aquarius Records
"Far from attempting to create acousmatic background sounds, Raposo and Santos
approach what they do with a definite sense of musical drama, slowly dripping
sounds into big, reverberating atmospheres.
The main piece here is the eight-minute title track, which throbs with that familiar
engine-room ambiance. This particular room, however, is inhabited by
a selection of unnerving sounds, the sounds of skittish half-glimpsed
things, part insect and part static eletricity, and the sonar pings which one
can imagine seeking them out.
Of course, this sound-world will be familiar to many listeners, but it's all
too easy to go from this to a value judgement. The sound-world of most jazz records
is just as "hackneyed"; the fact is, it's what you do with it that
ounts, and Vitriol make very involving music with these materials. God knows
it's easy to employ the same things to tedious ends. The other two pieces
of reasonable length (both around four and a half minutes) explore similar
areas. "Durriyyatun" is a good companion piece to the title track,
subtler, more slow-moving and in this writer's opinion the best track
here. "Ropica Pnefma", as its name sort of implies, brings some
of the rainforest into Vitriol's very digital world, but it's the grain and pace
of the sounds they're interested in, not their imitation.
This is a strong release from Vitriol. Mercifully parsimonious (this kind
of music can be hard to digest over an hour or more on CD), it presents
a concentrated view of their view of their musical style and leaves
one wanting to hear more."
richard cochrane / musings
This EP-length CD is made up of engaging sounds, seemingly from the
everyday environment, but altered and introduced into strange, unlikely
contexts, often accompanied by distant tones. This Portuguese collective have added an interesting new voice into the worldwide pool of sound-altering
artists.
Ceiling
"This electronic intermedia music is in the same line of fire such as
Steve Roden or even slightly Ikeda, Touch territory. Very organic soundscapes departing
from fieldrecordings and digitally processed."
Kraak
"Vitriol obtiene un repertorio atractivo y convincente."
Arsonal
"Although it is electronic, this improvised music has an intimate, chamber
music-like quality."
CDemusic