Intermedia artist Ricardo Jacinto with Nuno Torres (sax), Ricardo Jacinto (cello), Andre Sier (electronics), Dino Recio (percussion), Nuno Morao (percussion, melodica) and Joao Pinheiro (percussion, vibes) in a structured improvisation in an electro-acoustic environment.
Format: CD Condition: New Released: 2013 Country: Portugal Packaging: Cardboard box with slide in CD sleeve Recorded at Golden Pony Studios in Lisbon, Portugal in 2008 by Pedro Magalhaes.
"PARQUE is a project of the intermedia artist Ricardo Jacinto, with the instrumental contributions of Nuno Torres, Nuno Morão, João Pinheiro, Dino Récio and André Sier, and "Earworm Versions" the remaining tail of an exhibition and performance-installation presented at Culturgest, Lisbon, in 2008. With studies in architecture, sculpture and music, Jacinto became noticed because of the inclusion of sound in his visual and sculptural work and because he searches for an exploration of space when he acts as a cellist. At this level, he is a unique case in Portugal.
The music contained in this album corresponds to the precepts of structured improvisation in an electro-acoustic environment, focusing mainly on the use of textures where noise clusters and harmonic constructions are closely interlaced, mostly achieved by the sonic character of three instrumental-installations built by Jacinto specifically for this project. Glass (mirror) sonorities in the first two pieces and a natural doppler effect, produced by a pendular speaker, set the base for the musical compositions and determine the importance of space in this music. This recordings can be heard as the soundscape of this territory entitled PARQUE where audience and performers inhabit mini-architectural devices used for performing sound and light, reflecting the interaction of sound and space - in this aspect benefiting also from an interactive software designed by André Sier.
And because this music is, inevitably, part of a synesthesic complex, being its author a recognized manipulator of the factors of perception, live video-footage (edited by Nuno Ribeiro) of the three pieces here recorded are available at www.ricardojacinto.com, clarifying the image and spatial side of this project.
This is a long and very much expected edition. Here it is, finally, and with the superior quality we could wish for..."-Shhpuma
"I'm hoping The Earworm Versions will garner a little more international attention for Ricardo Jacinto, the Portuguese polymath behind the music of Parque. Jacinto's a cellist, but his resume stretches on: a student of architecture and sculpture, he combines sound installations, visual performances, and improvised music into colossal vortices of art. Even without the visual/physical element, The Earworm Versions is an impressive piece of music, certainly worthy to stand aside the names of fellow architects of sound like Max Eastley or Eli Keszler.
The Earworm Versions features three performances. The first is a piece for cello, alto saxophone, electronics, and percussion played on two giant, suspended mirrors. "Peça de Embalar" is austere and moody, the cello drawing long tones over the timpani-like mirrors, sounds like thunder rising in the distance. "Os" features a similar instrumental line-up, only with 24 smaller, tuned mirrors that hang vertically from wires on the ceiling like cymbals. The piece is interspersed with some readings from a sci-fi text (nothing special, but not terrible, either), which despite its strange subject matter represents the least interesting aural element at play.
Still, at times the words and the sounds converge keenly. "It's also fantastically cold," says the voice early in the piece, and the low sound of the saxophone starts to lift, a sound almost like shivering, and then the delicate clatter of the mirrors, hammered like dulcimers, an orchestra of ice. "Atraso" rounds out the selections, an improvisation that's played back through a speaker on a pendulum, which is swung around a room by two performers, creating a disorienting Doppler effect that sounds as though the music is swooping and diving around your head. What sounds gimmicky on paper actually creates a compelling pulse in the music, a slippery rhythmic element that's hard to pin down but proves to be the driving force behind the music.
There may be a debate to behad about divorcing these pieces from the structural and visual elements that make up their conceptual foundation, but the works can stand on the strength of the sounds alone. I'd like to think the performative and audio elements can serve two distinct functions and audiences (not mutually exclusive), rather than one being a lesser, incomplete version of the other. Either way, The Earworm Versions is lively listening, and a welcome edition to Sshpuma's burgeoning little catalog."-Dan Sorrells, freejazzblog.org