Once the first crackles emit from this single, 35-minute exhalation, you'd be forgiven if thinking it was déjà vu all over again. In other words, another howling-at-the-moon date by a trio of improvisers working the now-tattered seams binding electronic manipulation and live acoustic (re)processing. Certainly the forensic evidence calls such assumptions into immediate question: Weisblat manning ambiguous electronics (what a wide margin of trial and error that connotes), Monteiro strip-mining his "pick-ups on turntable", and Creative Sources honcho Rodrigues doubling on pick-ups, violin and "objects", mystery intact. Recorded in a Lisbon studio in 2004, this one-off meeting doesn't well stain improv's multi-textured complexion as much as reinforce seasoned templates etched ever so cleverly by burgeoning technology.
Weisblat's shortwave short-circuits curl outwards as soon as the disc opens, but it's Monteiro and Rodrigues who draw first blood. Whatever picks-up they close-mic to molest their turntables and their incumbent records with is unknown, but the harsh squawks and waves of static shear make it clear they aim to unleash less comfortable sounds from their set-up. Rodrigues' violin makes its presence known in small fits and starts, and Weisblat expounds what appears at first to be a limited vocabulary as he surges and feints his way about the meleé using coarse microtones and pieces of electrical shrapnel spat out onto the studio's smoldering floor. Establishing a central focus, a grasped direction, doesn't seem to be the trio's priority; rather, they gradually autopsy their instruments to see what lies within. This is sonic sculpture erected through the auspices of impromptu improv, wrenching forthright sounds from the guts of the universe.
All of which begs the question: is any kind of uniformity achieved, or does this ultimately become mere formless dabbling, dust in the wind? Silence intrudes upon the trio's brash noise at irregular intervals, signifying both calm before the storm to come, and perhaps a shoring up of connections, ideas, subsequent momentum. The jury's out on whether these three noisemakers do just that: make some occasionally stimulating noise or merely trample underfoot during the disc's short lifespan. Any conclusions become wholly subjective - successful or not, these capricious sounds exemplify the means justifying the ends; on that score, Diafon's ominous crackle is all the rage.
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