ba Kagpja carlos zingaro/ voicecrack | sirr014


This music is a cumulative effect of small doses of violin plus computer electronics by Zingaro and the by now famous "cracked everyday electronics" by Swiss VoiceCrack. "Ba Kagpja" is very inquisitive and extremely invasive;
sounds move around with circumspection and there's need of a solid and lasting concentration to decipher their contents. What appears like random noise is actually a three-way communication leaving commonplace and banality behind, instead reopening small cicatrixes bleeding out little electro-munchkins. Not domineering, always tempting you with wry smiles, Zingaro and VoiceCrack explore musical wrongfounts to elegantly zing and bend rules carved in the stone of mediocrity.
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

This meeting between violinist Carlos Zingaro, and the Swiss electronics duo
Voice Crack unfolds like a roller coaster ride. It is filled with luminous
passages and infuriating moments, as if the improvisers were having a hard
time coming up with enough ideas to keep the music afloat, but the little
ideas that did come to them were all brilliant. Zingaro is the most
inventive member of the trio, his gestures on the violin witty and light. He
uses a lot of quick yet delicate touches of the bow to answer Voice Crack's
pulsating textures. In the group's last few months, the music of
Voice Crack had turned into an endless textural flow of barely controlled
clicks and beeps, like background transmissions from outer space. In this
session, they do their own thing, existing within the low range of the sound
spectrum, like someone quietly living in his own apartment. Their music
doesn't grab the attention, but it is there and it changes slowly,
occasionally answering Zingaro's shifts between acoustic violin, treated
violin, and electronics with shifts of their own.
François Couture, All Music Guide

Veteran Portuguese violinist Carlos Zíngaro brings his formidable experience
and methodology to a face off with Andy Guhl and Norbert Möslang, the Swiss
duo known as Voice Crack who have partnered since 1972 and eschewed
conventional instruments for what they call “cracked everyday electronics”
since 1983. Over the years, Zíngaro has regularly played with French bassist
Joëlle Léandre as well as a global village of others from French saxophonist
Daunik Lazro to Canadian cellist Peggy Lee. Pioneers in the electronic
field, Voice Crack, who dissolved the partnership this year, have worked
with fellow Swiss drummer/electronics maven Günter Müller along with many
others. Almost 18 minutes elapse before you finally realize that the
irregular slides and scrapes you’ve heard previously aren’t mechanized, but
speedy glisses, caprices and stops from the violinist. Additionally, the
faint rumble, steady machine-like buzz and tugboat whistle tones are the
product of what Voice Crack has defined as acoustical waves, street rubbish
and toy store finds. The range of these cracked electronics makes a
cornucopia of unusual sounds appear. Among them are that of a disembodied
voice mumbling indistinctly through a primitive p.a. system, irregular
percussive bumps, an electric razor buzz, wavering tones ping-ponging from
one side of the space to the other, a hurdy gurdy timbre and the squeal of
tapes run backwards. Not to be outdone, Zíngaro evidentially applies extra
bow pressure to introduce distorted fiddle tones and uses sweeps and
spiccato to expand his string mass. His syncopated vibrato not only produces
bird-like chirps, but also stuttering scrapes that irritate the strings
enough to create shrill, brutal tones. Computer electronics allow him to
overcome the violin’s traditional sweet disposition, not only wrenching out
grating multiphonics from it, but exhibiting such a powerful pizzicato tug
that you could be hearing the rhythm of a bolo bat. Overall, the three reach
such concordance of congruence that it become literally impossible to append
one raspy texture to any one instrument -- electronic or not. Want to
experience up-to-the minute electro-acoustic string playing? You don’t have
to go any further than these CDs.
Ken Waxman, www.jazzweekly.com / www.jazzword.com

"It is as geographers that, for this world's edification, they feel the need
to get their hands dirty. Their work is not about software programming or
the handling of samples; their tools are simply the open guts of everyday
electronic gadgets. Their music is most fully expressed in real-time live
events, where an audience can watch the process unfold, and their tables
piled with equipment put to use. "Ba Kagpja" is a recording of one such
event, and preserves much of the magic Guhl and Moslang shared with
Portuguese musician Carlos Zingaro at Oporto's Co-Lab Festival, that night
in 2001. Although we miss the important visual element, we can picture the
two Swiss artists and their microchips as a pair of experimental scientists
in their laboratory. Zingaro's violin -- the only traditional musical
instrument in this recording -- interacts with his laptop computer, which
captures and manipulates the sound elements he and his fellow musicians
produce, and weaves dense textures of minute details, unexpected revelations
and discreet occlusions.
Squidco

VOICE CRACK es un veterano duo experimental suizo cuya carrera comienza hace
nada menos que 25 años y que actualmente son considerados como los pioneros
y “padrinos del Glitch”. Han colaborado con multitud de artistas de la élite
de música digital experimental actual y ahora le toca el turno a un clásico
de la nueva música portuguesa: Carlos Zingaro. Los increíbles sonidos
producidos por las manipulaciones electrónicas de Voicecrack son capturados
y tratados por el ordenador de Zingaro, que también aporta los sonidos de un
violín manipulados. El resultado es muy intenso y contundente.
geometrik

"Quem apenas conhece a faceta violinística de Carlos Zíngaro, desenvolvida
junto do mainstream da livre-improvisação acústica ou mesmo do free jazz,
consideraria este encontro com os suíços Voicecrack altamente improvável,
mas a verdade é que o músico português se movimenta igualmente nos domínios
da electrónica tocada em tempo real (ou não), a solo (à semelhança de «Cage
of Sand», também editado pela sirr) ou ao lado de nomes como Gunter Muller,
Matt Wand (Stock, Hausen & Walkman), Thomas Lehn, Otomo Yoshihide, Marc
Behrens ou estes mesmos Voicecrack, duo especializado naquilo que os seus
membros, Andy Guhl e Norbert Moslang, chamam de „cracked
everyday-electronics‰ e que consiste nos pequenos motores, chips e circuitos
internos de utensílios de uso quotidiano como telemóveis, comandos à
distância (de televisores, carros de brinquedo, etc.) e o mais que se possa
imaginar. Este disco consiste no registo ao vivo do concerto que os três
músicos realizaram há um par de anos no festival Co-Lab do Porto, e daí o
título (de duvidoso gosto, convenhamos) da única longa peça deste álbum,
«Prêt-à-Porto». Esta é uma música textural, feita de abundantes e diminutos
pormenores que obrigam a uma atenta audição para melhor serem apreciados, e
preferencialmente com o volume puxado para cima. O nível de abstracção é
elevado, mas surgem por vezes padrões rítmicos que não é hábito encontrar em
Zíngaro e nos próprios Voicecrack e que poderão, eventualmente, interessar
aos cultores da chamada „digital music‰, mais permeável à influência do
„beat‰. Com uma estrutura estática, ainda que pouco ou nada familiarizada
com a estética do „drone‰, o que aqui ouvimos tem um acentuado carácter
hipnótico, também inédito nos respectivos percursos."
Rui Eduardo Paes