A remarkable album of masterful and wide-ranging string interaction from improviser and Creative Sources label leader Ernesto Rodrigues (viola) with active contemporary Portuguese performers Maria do Mar (violin), Helena Espvall (cello) and Berlin-based violinist of Japanese origin Marie Takahashi, accompanied by Joao Valinho on percussion & piano.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2020 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard Gatefold Recorded at Namouche Studio, in Lisbon, Portugal, on November 19th, 2018, by Joaquim Monte.
"There are records where the sound engineer is like one of the elements of the group he is playing. This is one of them. Queen Triot was recorded in the studio (Namouche) by Joaquim Monte and what we hear most seems to have been recorded in a "site specific" location with natural reverberating acoustics. When trying to give such an impression, it is generally possible to detect the artificiality of the processes, but not here: we hear the instruments (a violin, two violas, a cello + percussion or piano) and the space around them, in addition to the way space shapes what these instruments are doing.
Emphasizing Monte's work on this album is also due to two implicit factors, but which could not have been covered, at least in this way: his work in the mixer underlined the two guidelines of the music that is played here. One of these guidelines is presence: we hear the smallest detail of the materials that each participant introduces, in such a way that even the greatest subtleties gain unexpected clarity (never to the detriment of the dynamics, it should be noted).
The other is even more exciting: from the joint action of the five musicians there is an effect of phantasmagization that not only confirms that, in improvised musical creation, the results are more than the sum of the parts, but also gives us an imminently plastic panorama, by level of a perspective work that works by alternating or overlapping plans, removing the time element from the matrix of developments to reinforce the space element.
This type of explorations with the use of cordophones is already to be expected by Ernesto Rodrigues, but it is especially gratifying to know that this investigative interest is shared by the three figures of the national scene that we find here, Maria do Mar, Helena Espvall and Joao Valinho. The participation of Berlin-based violinist of Japanese origin Marie Takahashi, known mainly for her activity as an interpreter of Baroque music, is the icing on the cake."-Rui Eduardo Paes, Jazz.pt (via Google Translate)