cage of sand carlos zingaro | sirr007


Portuguese violinist Zingaro, a regular collaborator with bassist Joelle
Léandre, works solo magic here with his real time blending of violin and
electronics. He projects spectral streams of glass harmonica, dips
minimalist slabs into corrosive solutions so they glow and effervesce, and
mimics the meanderings of animated speech patterns. The bow glides then
sputters; strings whimper, pop and soar; shortwave agitation contaminates
celestial shimmers; whale cries filter through an underwater cathedral. On
Cage of Sand, an experienced improvisor's extreme versatility, steeped in
electroacoustic know-how, opens up charmed spaces.

the wire magazine


"The new relationship between the violin and its electronic counterpart(s)
produces stop-and-start clamor that could be jets taking off, tweety birds
complaining, a saxophone's key pops, processed voices, a child's video
game, temple bells tinkling and clock ticking, faster and faster. Obviously
Zingaro has discovered the true nature of electronics -- that you can bend
them to reflect new avenues of expression with your own instrument as a
sound source."

ken waxman, alljazzweekly


"His mastery of real-time electronic transformations is as state-of-the-art
as you're likely to need. "Cage of Sand" is the most impressive solo work
he's produced since "Carlos Zingaro Solo" back in 1989 (and that was notable
principally for the seven second echo of the monastery where he recorded
it). Don't let Marc Behrens' austere cover photography and track titles like
"Logic and Ordered Space" and "Sedimentary Deposit of Suffering" put you
off: this is real from-the-gut playing, beautifully recorded and it richly
repays repeated listening."

Dan Warburton, Signal-to Noise


Zingaro has been rafting these waters for a while, but recent technological
advances have allowed him to find a much more satisfying way to integrate
electronics into his playing. Real-time sound treatment feels so natural and
interactive when compared to the crude MIDI-triggered sound synthesis of the
late '80s. The violinist's playing is fluid, varied, and creative. The
treatments embellish, expand the power of atmospheres, challenge the player
with mirror images of himself, and reveal hidden corners of the instrument
by drawing listeners closer to some details. Do not be lured by programmatic
titles like "Representations of Beasts" and "Radio Insects"; they poorly
translate the music lying underneath them. Zingaro has struck a fine balance
between acoustic and electronic music and noise.

François Couture, All music guide


Words failed me when I first encountered Cage of Sand by Carlos Zingaro.
Nine pieces for violin and electronics, performed in real time with only a
touch of editing and mixing, and I became stoically silent in the wake of
their intensity and vigour. At times tense, at others playful, yet always
challenging and complex, Zingaro's improvisations are charged with
electricity, latent and explosive in turns, the unpredictable electronic
elements originating from inventive strains on the violin, all the while
involved in its own tricks and acrobatics.

Richard di Santo, Incursion.org


Carlos Zingaro es uno de los grandes de la nueva música portuguesa desde
hace más de una década. Un maestro improvisador que trabaja habitualmene
también junto a artistas como Otomo Yoshihide, Richard Teitelbaum, o Joelle
Leandre. Cage of Sand es su nuevo trabajo, esta vez para el interesantísimo
sello SIRR,? destacando entre su abundante discografía. En este disco
Zingaro utiliza solo un violín como fuente sonora, procesado en tiempo real
con diversos tratamientos electrónicos. No es solo una alucinante
exploración de los sonidos producidos entre el violín y la electrónica sino
también un disco lleno de fuerza, tensión e intensidad.

bulletin, rotor


It is a very enjoyable cd that made me think of Jon Rose and
Agencement. The way Zingaro uses electronics the music becomes very
polyphonic. The music is very lively and poetic. Zingaro is a true
master.

DM, vital weekly


Zingaro heavily favors improvisation, playing along with his electronics
in real time with "very little editing or remixing." Simple to outline, this approach is
difficult to fully capture. Zingaro plays off-the-cuff duets with his own
electron-based ghosts, parries hideously time-delayed mutations of his own
instrument, manipulates his own infinite replications into unrecognizable
walls of sound. There's seldom a melody or a clear structure; instead,
Zingaro offers an array of consistently challenging experiments. "The Cities
and the Dead" is the 9- minute opener, a duplicated set of odd violin lines
that devolve into a string section warming up, then become a cloned drone
over a wave of underlying sonic textures that eventually smother it. "White
Fire" starts with an oddly soothing, continuously evolving distortion field
bearing no resemblance to any natural string sound before breaking into an
almost pure violin line with an ominous hum as accompaniment. When the
identifiable violin vanishes near the end, it's like a wake-up call. A
crystalline, ambient introduction of sustained tones opens the finale,
"Nothing Is Remote," but these are joined by mutated whale songs and
time-distorted backward masking sounds, before it all breaks off in an
utterly unresolved ending. Listening to Cage of Sand, I'm reminded of the
discordant moments of Howard Shore's work for director David Cronenberg, the
minimalistic coldness of Crash or the free jazz collaborations with Ornette
Coleman on the Naked Lunch soundtrack. It's easy to imagine Zingaro's effort
scoring some equally experimental film. Do I actually enjoy listening to
Cage of Sand? Yes, in many ways I do. Zingaro's creativity mastery of the
electronic manipulation of his violin is fascinating and admirable, and
after some exposure, the sheer foreignness is replaced with a certain
appreciation. However, there are still days when Zingaro's work forces me to
reach rapidly for another disc, any other disc, instead. This cacophony can
be as overwhelming as it is interesting. This is certainly music for the
"difficult listening hour," as Laurie Anderson might put it. But if you
enjoy heavily experimental music and can appreciate being trapped between
the worlds of Form and Pandemonium, then enter Carlos Zingaro's Cage of
Sand. You may not exit Zingaro's enclosure humming its praises, but at the
very least, you'll leave feeling challenged by its confines.

Rambles Magazine


Most of the tracks here sound like they'd make a terrific soundtrack for a
particularly fucked-up independent horror movie, all high squealing noises
that straddle the line between spine-tingling and just plain painful, combined
with odd digitally-manipulated sound effects that make it sound like you're
just about to crash headlong into a haunted house. At the same time, there's
a playfulness involved. Maybe all the monsters tiptoeing around just behind
you aren't out to eat your brains, but rather to tease you, running off and
giggling every time you look over your shoulder. And all this from what is
essentially a solo violin record. Zíngaro's instrument is fed through any
number of electronic filters, bent and broken into pieces. It's deeply weird
-- and yet, after a half-hour or so, his world falls into place and makes its
own internal logic; it removes the violin from its usual context and, by
making it unrecognizable, makes the bizarre familiar -- demonstrating
that just because something sounds unfamiliar and alien doesn't mean
it necessarily is.

Mandy Shekleton, splendidzine


Impiegando in maniera allargata il suo strumento d'origine e trattandone i
suoni elettronicamente, il nostro congiura una metastasi di noduli fonici
schematizzata con severità da musica contemporanea ma anche vivacissima
sotto il profilo ritmico-timbrico tanto che "Structural Functions", ad
esempio, sembra seguire le repentine evoluzioni di un cartoon impazzito.

nicola catalano, rumore


Un pedigree di tutto rispetto pertanto, che quest' album per soli violino ed
eletronics conferma et rafforza. Immginate un violino particolarmente
schizzato alle presse con dele rielaborazioni in tempo reale via laptop e
software construiti personalmente da Zingaro: il resultato `e una cascata di
suoni framentati e spostati come, mutatis mutandis, potreste sentire da
Kevin Drumm o dogli Nmperign. Non per tutti ma se vi mancava il violino net
cornet delle ipotesi, qui ne trovate una prova superlativa.

Stephano Bianchi, Blow-Up Magazine