Stackenas / Rodrigues / Rodrigues / Torres

Wounds Of Light

Label: Creative Sources Country: Portugal

"Light? There's never been any lightness to the Rodrigueses' playing. Physically, there's often a lot of pressure applied with the bow; intellectually, their music is consistently ripe with thought and pregnant with meaning - aerial perhaps, but light, never.

Yes, I know, it's not lightness this title is about. It's illumination, brilliance, luminance - all words aptly describing (in reverse order) the father-son duo's music, this particular quartet session, and the result of experiencing both.

Thought, focus, the resonance of each musician's soul with his instrument and his colleagues: all these factors are enlightening, casting - yes - a light on the music at hand. But they don't explain everything. How could they? How could one truly explain the magic ofgenuine collective improvisation? The act of performing as one yet as separate personalities? The feat of achieving cohesion without resorting to predictability? The incredible level of "telepathy/synergy/complementarity" between Ernesto, Guilherme, David, and Nuno? The uncanny way this quartet lays out and articulates sounds so that the listener may feel like a participant, someone as accountable for the success of the recording as the musicians involved? In following the Rodrigueses' adventures through the catalogue of the Creative Sources label, I have often tried to explain all this and know that I am doomed to fail, always.

Light, therefore. There shall be light as you listen to this CD. But the music itself is far from sunny. It has its dark corners, its shadows, its pitch-black Lovecraftian recesses - moreso than most of the recordings involving the Rodrigueses, and especially in the second piece, where a sense of impending doom (un)resolves in a very strange way. An ironic use of the word "light, then? Perhaps, although in this case, that which is absent (light) could hurt your eyes if it were used maliciously.

Speaking of maliciousness, David Stackenäs - the X factor in this aligment - is maliciously playing the agent provocateur part; his acoustic guitar work, gritty, grating, highly experimental and unique, sits wonderfully well between the tensed-up textures of the Rodrigueses' stringwork and the quiet, inner-reaching tones from Nuno Torres' saxophone.

But does it hurt, this wound? Revelations always hurt - at least a bit - our preconceived ideas, if nothing else. And that might happen to you, especially around the nine-minute mark inthe third piece, when Stackenäs chooses the path of most resistance, triggering the most unrulymoment of the album. That's when a lightbulb might come on in the heads of the most blasé oflisteners: "Oh my, they're having fun too!"

If you're all stuck up about non-idiomatic improvisation, that kind of enlightenment could leave a mark!"-François Couture, blog.monsieurdelire.com