A sense of both lightness and weight drawn from Portuguese viola player's Ernesto Rodrigues' 18-piece String Theory, in a large and detailed improvisation using an incredible array of string sources, including viola, harp, violin, cello, viola da gamba, double bass, classical, acoustic and 12-string guitars, mandolin, zither, harpsichord, and piano.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2016 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard foldover Recorded live at O'Culto Da Ajuda, on March 11th, 2016, by Miguel Azguime.
"Undoubtedly, one of the most beautiful projects realized by the galaxy of Portuguese improvisers federated around the violist Ernesto Rodrigues and his friends. All the instruments used by the eighteen musicians present are "stringed" whether they are rubbed (violins, violas da gamba, cellos, double basses), plucked (guitars, zither, harps) or hit / plucked by a keyboard mechanism (Piano, harpsichord).
Gravity is a long improvisation that occupies the entire duration of the compact, excellently recorded and prepared for the disc by Ernesto himself. When one imagines the difficulties encountered in finding a decent place, to gather so many musicians, to focus them on a very precise idea like this string orchestra, one can already welcome the extraordinary work of these Portuguese musicians brought together by Ernesto Rodrigues, Which has just produced in 2016 no fewer than eighteen albums with his collaborations. A disc with 18 musicians and 18 Creative Sources albums, four of which present the music of more imposing collective ensembles such as the present String Theory, Theatron, IKB and Variable Geometry Orchestra, the latter two ensembles not having their first try.
The workforce of the Variable Geometry Orchestra in Quasar their new album culminates in 46 musicians. Collectively and musically, it is therefore a work and a long-term work and we can already consider the personality of Ernesto Rodrigues, tireless organizer of Lisbon as unavoidable as those of Eddie Prevost, Rhodri Davies, Michel Doneda or Franz Hautzinger, for example, among the artists who have contributed to the practice of free improvisation over the last twenty years towards minimalist forms, roughly qualifying lower-case, reductionist, new Silence, etc ...
And what is more exemplary than this Gravity which, beginning with a ghostly ostinato, visits the aggregates of sounds, rubbings, pinches, curious vibrations, dynamic squeaks in a kalideoscopic vision and arachneenne of the " Instrumental action. Violoncello or guitar prepared, miasmus of violin, scratching, phantom sounds, mysterious rustles. Although it seems that a forced path is traced, certain instruments intervene in concert as if the moment was chosen: free improvisation and their innate qualities Of mutual listening, of simultaneous action and reaction, and of finesse in empathy, allow String Theory's companions to trace a path, to build a universe that is both homogeneous and heterogeneous according to the point of view square.
Indeed, a community of feeling, an ambient temperature shared by each one is drawn and connects all the specific sounds, timbrales, dynamics, frank affirmations and playful connivances that flush out thirty-nine minutes and thirty five seconds. The actions of the musicians can be very diversified or concentrated in a single impetus according to the feeling of each one. Gravity is a unique recording in the annals of improvised music and that is why I will later discuss the sister projects IKB, Variable Geometry Orchestra and Theatron in the following chronicles. It is not every day that such extensive orchestral formations are documented in the field of contemporary improvisation."-Jean-Michel van Schouwburg, Orynx (translated by Google)