The Squid's Ear Magazine


Toral, Rafael / Hugo Antunes / Joao Pais Filipe / Ricardo Webbens: Space Quartet (Clean Feed)

Composer, engineer and electronic artist Rafael Toral has completed his Space Program series and now launches his "Space Quartet" with double bassist Hugo Antunes, drummer/percussionist Joao Pais Filipe, synth player Ricardo Webbens, and Toral himself on modular feedback, blending solid acoustic rhythms with interstellar and abstract sound; singular.
 

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product information:

Personnel:



Hugo Antunes-double bass

Joao Pais Filipe-drums, percussion

Ricardo Webbens-modular synthesizer, network synthesizer

Rafael Toral-modular feedback circuit, synthesizers, direction


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UPC: 5609063004793

Label: Clean Feed
Catalog ID: CF479
Squidco Product Code: 26018

Format: CD
Condition: New
Released: 2018
Country: Italy
Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold
Recorded at Estudio 15A, Lisboa (1, 4), Sonoscopia, Porto (2), and Sal‹o Brazil, Coimbra (3), November 2017, by Noise Precision Mobile.

Descriptions, Reviews, &c.

"After the conclusion of the 13-year-long Space Program series, Space Quartet marks a new horizon in Rafael Toral's ongoing music explorations. Referring both to a record and a band configuration, Space Quartet embodies a maturing moment for the Portuguese musician. As one of the most internationally-recognized figures in the leftfield domains of music, Toral describes the album as "an advanced application of the Space Program principles": electronic music with a human touch. Over the years, Toral developed a jazz-like phrasing using abstract electronics. Operating within the context of a typical quartet, Space Quartet features the interplay of two electronic voices, one played by himself, on melodic feedbacks and hacked amplifiers, and one by Ricardo Webbens, on modular synthesizer and other custom stuff; rounding out the quartet is the versatile Hugo Antunes on double bass and the inventive drums of Joao Pais Filipe, who also plays gongs and bells of his own making. The electronics are the driving core of the ambitious Space Quartet, setting it apart from many examples of electronics in jazz. Inspired by some of the principles and methods of enigmatic master Sei Miguel, the music develops solely according to the musicians' free decisions. The result is a sense of flux and ever-renewing forward motion, continuously unfolding into new places, through spirit and matter from jazz- rock to ambient music and "the singing of standards from another planet" (Toral dixit). One thing is for sure: you've never heard anything like this before."-Clean Feed



This album has been reviewed on our magazine:

The Squid
The Squid's Ear!

Artist Biographies

"Hugo Antunes was born in 1974 in Portugal. In 2011 released "The future of the past" VELKRO album on Pling records. In 2010 released "Roll Call", for Clean Feed records. In 2009 was awarded with an INOV ART scholarship (Did a research over improvised music in Brussels Belgium.); In 2009 enrolled as a bachelor student in the Royal Belgium Conservatory in Brussels, studying with Christophe Walleme; In 2008 during the Coimbra Jazz Festival, he was invited to participate in Jazz Orchestra Workshop conducted and oriented by the alto saxophone player Michael Attias, which ended with a live performance in the Festival; In 2006 attended a Berklee summer workshop, in Perugia, Italy, oriented by Dave Clark; In 2005 enrolled as a full-time bachelor student in the Amsterdam's Conservatorium of Music. His major was Double Bass Jazz with Prof. Franz Van der Hooven; In 2004, during the Coimbra Jazz Festival, was invited to participate in Jazz Orchestra Workshop conducted and oriented by the double bass player Adam Lane, which ended with a live performance in the Festival; In 2003, during the Estoril Jazz Festival, attended a workshop with Rufus Reid; In 2002 attended a Jazz workshop taking place in Valencia, Spain, with Mário Rossy; In 2000(/2002) initiated his musical and double bass studies at "Luís Villas Boas" (Hot Club) in Lisbon.

Bands and musicians he worked with: Gerry Smullian USA; Michael Attias (USA); Nate Wooley (USA); Alexandra Samsonova Trio and Quartet with Jesus Santandreu; Carlo Magni Trio; Michel Charenc (France); Benny Lackner Trio with Mathieu Chazarenc; Carlos Carli Trio with German Kucich; Harmonics player Olivier Ker Orio; Phil Abraham (Belgium); Albert Bover (Spain); Christian Brewer (England); Quentin Collins (England); Michel Joussin (France); Loopless; VELKRO; Alexi Tuomarila (Finland); Robin Verheyen (Belgium); Winchovski (Belgium). Music and performence with: Nastio Mosquito, Trienal S. Paulo (Brasil), "Africalls", Casa de África, Spain, Las Palmas in 2008; "Evento", Bordeaux, France in 2009; Nastio e Kalaf, "Festival Mistura" 2008, at S. Luiz, Lisbon. "VOUS", International collective on improvised music, tap-toe, poetry, video. Lisbon, Portugal 2008, Apt, France 2009; "Deus.Pátria.Revolução.", play by Luis Bragança Gil e Luisa Costa Gomes, at CCB in Lisbon , Portugal 2008; S. João do Porto, Porto, Portugal 2009. Music and improvised dance: Ana Borges, Portugal; Luis Marrafa, Portugal/Belgium.

Taught Double bass at Escola das Artes de Sines, and others, in Portugal. Workshops over Improvised music in Portugal and Norway.

-Jazz In Belgium Website (http://www.jazzinbelgium.com/person/hugo.antunes)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"João Pais Filipe (born 1980) is a drummer / percussionist and sonic sculptor from Porto. His career as a musician is characterized by his approach to a wide range of styles and languages, in bands like Sektor 304, HHY & The Macumbas, Unzen Pilot and Fail Better !, Contained Stone, Radial Chao Opera, Two White Monsters Around a Round Table, And has participated in numerous projects alongside names such as Steve Hubback, Fritz Hauser, Evan Parker, Marcello Magliocchi, Stefano Giust, George Haslam, Carlos "Zíngaro" and Rafael Toral. João Pais Filipe develops, in addition to his path as a musician, a work of building gongs, cymbals and other percussive metal instruments, through which he explores both the acoustic properties of these objects and their potential sculptural and imagery dimension.

João Pais Filipe (b. 1980) is a drummer / percussionist and sound sculptor from Porto. His career as a musician is characterized by the approach to a wide range of styles and languages, in bands like Sektor 304, HHY & The Macumbas, Unzen Pilot Fail Better !, Contained Stone, Radial Chao Opera and Two White Monsters Around A Round Table , Such as Steve Hubback, Fritz Hauser, Evan Parker, Marcello Magliocchi, Stefano Giust, George Haslam, Carlos "Zíngaro" and Rafael Toral, among others, while maintaining regular activity in the world of improvised music. In addition to his musical journey, João Pais Filipe develops Gong Making, Cymbalsmithing and other metal percussion instruments, through which he explores the acoustic properties of these objects as their potential sculptural dimension and imagery."

-Joao Pais Filipe Website, translated by Google (http://joao-pais-filipe.tumblr.com/biography)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Born in Lisbon Portugal July 21 of the year 1973, Ricardo Webbens is a multidisciplinary artist. Although he had a classical education in the visual arts (painting, drawing and sculpture), soon he became interested in the visual component of the emergent video art movement. He began by making video installations and experimenting with the early aesthetic of panning, already with several studies in aesthetic composition of color and functionality. Many of these works explored the dialectic that exists between work and experimentation referenced context.

Later, as he evolved with his work in the field of video art, he decided to test another artistic environment. In 1996 begins to explore music (focusing more on electronic music) and incorporate this new line of work in video art, becoming a hybrid artist, composing and creating more complete and complex works.

Ricardo embarks once more on a journey through contemporary improvisation and followed several special projects and participated with artists from other areas such as dance and theater, like Clara Andermatt.

Ricardo Webbens stands out in this field as an artist who makes and creates his own instruments in a personal search for collateral spaces in music.

The exploration of new instrumentation in electronic music is a subject that interests the artist and is work is a reflexion of that.

Kringles cat and Mosquito are two forays into the field of jazz improvisation. Project Kringles Cat, a duo with the artist Travassos, is made of exploratory ramblings in the travel universe of contemporary environmental and experimentation of new concepts and instrumentation.

Project Mosquito, with Hernâni Faustino, Travassos and Joaquim Trindade, is a tireless quest for three-dimensional panoramas and parallel universes where the demand for constant imagery brings to the work of these artists a soundscape almost mathematical but inconstant.

He then forms Tsuki, with José Lencastre, in order to create a compelling solution in the DIY movement. He also continues to work with video, doing some work for artists like Blockhead (Ninja Tune) and bllix (Audiobulb).

On the other hand he is doing another kind of visual experimentation in the field of improvisation with Tiago Miranda (Loosers), at Lux Frágil and also at MusicBox (two of the most notorious Lisbon nightclubs). He then embarks into the emission of sound as a way of composing new pieces for is work.

By the hand of Rafael Toral came the "space collective series" and the "doubles duos, trios and quartets project". In this project he is aware of a new approach to score design and the way that interacts physically with the performers."

-Granular (http://www.granular.pt/GRANULAR/Ricardo_Webbens.html)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.

"Rafael Toral, born in Lisbon, 1967 has been intrigued by the potential of sound and the functions of music since he was a teenager. As a composer and performer, he has been deeply involved with Rock, Ambient, Contemporary, Electronic and Free Jazz music in different periods of his life.

Working with electric guitar and electronics, in the 1990's he created a blend of Ambient and Rock and recorded acclaimed albums like Wave Field or Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance. By the early 2000's he arrived to a sense of accomplishment about his previous 15 years of work, also realizing the world needed a different creative response. He decided to start something new, as radically different from the previous phase as possible. In a transition to vulnerable action, he launched the alien-sounding Space Program in 2004, using experimental electronic instruments. It's been an ambitious long-term project exploring an approach to electronic music based on silence, through decision making and physical gesture, in a way inspired by post-free Jazz. The resulting music, "melodic without notes, rhythmic with no beat, familiar but strange, meticulous but radically free - riddled with paradox but full of clarity and space", has been described as "a brand of electronic music far more visceral and emotive than that of his cerebral peers".

In the last 15 years he's been thinking and practicing an understanding of silence as "space", with a clear function in music creation but also as a metaphor for social relationships and a statement on information and sensory overload.

Performing solo or in numerous collaborations (including Jim O'Rourke, Jim Baker, Sei Miguel, Chris Corsano, John Edwards, Evan Parker, Tatsuya Nakatani, Manuel Mota, Alvin Lucier, Phill Niblock, Christian Marclay, Sonic Youth, Rhys Chatham, Lee Ranaldo, C Spencer Yeh, and many others), he has been touring throughout Europe, Canada, USA, Mexico, South Korea, Japan, New Zealand and Australia.

Also active in visual and spatial arts, Toral has produced video and several installations from 1994 to 2003.

In 2014 he relocated to the mountains in central Portugal for a more sustainable life. In 2017, having concluded the Space Program's recording series, Toral is entering a wider field with multiple directions and possibilities. From his mountain studio, he also offers mastering services."

-Rafael Toral Website (http://rafaeltoral.net/about/)
3/13/2024

Have a better biography or biography source? Please Contact Us so that we can update this biography.


Track Listing:



1. Lisboa, Pt.1 18:09

2. Porto 9:16

3. Coimbra 11:19

4. Lisboa, Pt.2 9:37

Related Categories of Interest:


Clean Feed
Electro-Acoustic
Electro-Acoustic Improv
Electronic Forms
Piano & Keyboards
European Improvisation, Composition and Experimental Forms
Trio Recordings
New in Experimental & Electronic Music

Search for other titles on the label:
Clean Feed.


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