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> antologia de música electrónica
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NUNO
CANAVARRO (1962)
Alsee, 1988
Ensoniq Mirage sampler, Yamaha FB-01 synthesizer
Author's studio, Cascais
Plux Quba, LP Ama Romanta, 1988; re CD Moikai, 1998
Began his music career as a member of pop bands in the beginning of the
1980's and, from 1983 to 1985, studied electroacoustic music in the United
States and in The Netherlands. After Plux Quba was released in
1998, he started composing music for cinema. Plux Quba was recorded
with scarce means, among which "a synthesizer, an Ensoniq Mirage
eight bit sampler (one of the first available at that time) and an eight
track Fostex recorder. Today I can hardly believe how I managed to do
that record. I actually used the sampler’s software errors. It was
a quite unstable instrument and there were situations in which, forced
to work hard, it would behave unpredictably. It was very good for the
kind of music I wanted to do. The tracks plb, xqa and
xlb were produced in the same recording sessions. Rafael Toral
found them in the Plux Quba tapes and thought it would be interesting
to include them in the anthology. I hadn't heard some of these sounds
for about ten or twelve years. For a while – at least while I listened
to them – they took Plux Quba's electroacoustic map back
to me.”
CÂNDIDO
LIMA (1939)
Oceanos, 1978
Two VCS3 synthesizers, computer with U.P.I.C. system support.
CEMAMU and SEV, Paris and RDP studios, Oporto*.
Autómatos de areia/ Lendas de Neptuno/ Oceanos, CD Strauss,
1992
A Portuguese computer music pioneer, Cândido Lima studied composition
in the Lisbon and Oporto conservatories and, later on, with Stockhausen,
Ligeti, Pousseur and Boulez, among others. He got a doctorate in Aesthetics
in Paris with his thesis supervised by Iannis Xenakis, took courses in
computer music systems in Paris' and Vincennes' universities and followed
training programs at CEMAMU and IRCAM. Besides teaching music composition,
he also directs the Grupo Música Nova, which he founded in 1975.
"This work belongs to a period of aesthetic preoccupation and meeting
of new acoustic and musical spaces. Here the music is interpreted as energy,
as speed, as pure motion, as beings on their own. To find the frontiers
between freedom and submission to models and systems – either grammatical
or technological – where subversion to determinism and rationality
is, here’s the challenge to the listener, the analyst and the composer
himself." "According to mythology, Oceanus was the first god
of the sea. The ancients thought Oceanus was a river surrounding the Earth.
The piece is everything that can present analogies with the mythology,
with real or imaginary oceans, with our planet or interstellar realities."
NUNO REBELO (1960)
New Amp, 1984
Microphone, guitar amplifier.
Author's studio, Cascais
Previously unreleased
A multi-instrumentalist graduated in architecture, Nuno Rebelo began doing
music research and experimentation in the mid-1980's, discovering several
instrumental and composition techniques on his own. He developed activity
as an improviser establishing many collaborations, and founded projects
as Mler Ife Dada, Plopoplot Pot and Poliploc Orchestra. He composed the
EXPO’98 theme music. He has also composed music for theatre, cinema
and dance, the latter in many international collaborations. "New
(guitar) amplifier – or, to be more accurate, in second hand –
and nothing to try it with but an old microphone my father used in his
home-recordings. This was how I was led to find feedback's musical potentialities.
This first discovery was captured right away (on three tracks, with a
Fostex X-15), recording one of the first moments in which I clearly distanced
myself from the pop universe. What we can listen to here is an excerpt
of that improvised composition, which lasts about ten minutes."
ISABEL SOVERAL (1961)
Anamorphoses I, 1994
Buchla modular synthesizer.
State University of New York, Stony Brook, New York
Previously unreleased
Attended composition courses by composers Joly Braga Santos and Jorge
Peixinho at the National Conservatory of Lisbon, and in 1988 studied at
the State University of New York, Stony Brook, where she began working
in electronic music with Bulent Arel and Daria Semegen. Since 1995 Isabel
Soveral has been teaching music analysis and composition at Aveiro University.
"Anamorphoses I is one of the pieces of the Morfoses cycle,
consisting of a vast group of works for instruments and magnetic tape.
The different compositions in this cycle, although different in form,
have the same elaboration criteria for the materials used in the tapes:
the various sounds are processed and transformed in many different ways,
and taken to acquire new timbral qualities. Losing their initial identity,
they originate various states of sound metamorphosis in the development
of the piece, taking on the shape of new imaginary instruments. In the
particular case of Anamorphoses I, because of the tape's orchestral
role and the way the clarinet-tape relationship develops, the piece almost
takes on the dimension of a Concert for clarinet and magnetic tape."
FILIPE PIRES (1934)
Homo Sapiens, 1972
Magnetic tape.
GRM* studios, Paris
Canto Ecuménico/ Litania/ Homo Sapiens, LP Imavox, 1980,
re CD Strauss, 1997
Began his career as a pianist, studying in Lisbon, Hannover and Salzburg.
A growing interest in avant-garde aesthetic trends led him to undergo
training in electroacoustic music with Pierre Schaeffer at Groupe de Recherches
Musicales, from 1970 to 1972. He was engaged as a music specialist for
the UNESCO International Secretariat between 1975 and 1979. Up to present,
he has also been teaching musical analysis and composition. The musical
language of Filipe Pires, formerly of strong tonal roots of neo-classical
appearance, has shifted to atonalism, chance and electroacoustics, the
latter of which he was a pioneer in Portugal in the 1970’s. "The
human voice, used as a symbol of earth and creation, constitutes the heart
of this work, phonetically setting itself in a context evolving towards
movement, elaboration and the fusion of diverse sound elements. Homo
Sapiens is a revised version of the first part of the Nam Ban
ballet, composed in 1970 and commissioned by the Portuguese Secretariat
for the Osaka Exhibition. The present version was composed at the Groupe
de Recherches Musicales in Paris."
TELECTU (1982)
Performance #, 1984
Tapes, synthesizer, electronic guitar
Bienal de Vila Nova de Cerveira, 1984
Performance, LP Dargil, 1984; re CD Strauss, 1995
Duo established by Jorge Lima Barreto and Vitor Rua in 1982, began with
vanguard rock performances, soon turning into electroacoustics, jazz-off
and minimalism. Besides Telectu's extensive discography, they also composed
for theatre, cinema, poetry and video. Considering various post-modern
music languages, they have been inviting leading musicians in the "new
improvisation" scene and presented themselves in Moscow, New York,
London, Havana, Barcelona and Peking. "Created for the 1984’s
"Bienal de Cerveira", Performance # was an installation
presented in a big warehouse, where paint cans were displayed in a broad
circle along with synthesizers, mixing desks and two Revox tape recorders
playing a long tape loop circulating in the space. At night there were
three or four light projectors on the floor spreading beams of a white,
diaphanous light. All sounds were heard from two loudspeakers placed at
the edges of the circle, at a low, almost subliminal, volume and an open
microphone could vaguely capture the audience's voices. Performance
# was an experimental creation of a repetitive minimal music "open
work". "
JORGE PEIXINHO (1940-1995)
Elegia a Amílcar Cabral, 1973
Twelve sinewave oscillators.
IPEM* studios, Gent
Elegia a Amílcar Cabral, LP Lamiré, 1978; re CD
Strauss, 1997
Studied composition and piano in Lisbon and Rome, worked with Luigi Nono
and Pierre Boulez, and took part in the experimental concerts carried
on by Stockhausen in Darmstadt Ensemble and Musik für
ein Haus. In 1972/73 he undertook electronic music practical training
at the Belgian IPEM. Developing intense activity as a composer, pianist
and teacher, he directed the Grupo de Música Contemporânea
de Lisboa, which he had founded in 1970. "On January 20th 1973, in
Gent, Belgium, I was painfully taken by surprise by the news of Amílcar
Cabral's murdering. I decided that very same day to compose a piece which
would reflect my personal homage to the great African politician. A purely
electronic piece, typically elegiac, static and meditational. It's composed
only with twelve sinewave tones, remaining unchanged throughout the entire
piece, and includes 9 juxtaposed sections. The piece's ending, insisting
on a long and high pitched frequency being abruptly cut, could suggest
Cabral’s unpredictable and sudden death, as well as the pereniallity
of his political message.”
RAFAEL TORAL (1967)
Mills Session (introdução), 1997
Moog III-P modular system.
Center for Contemporary Music, Mills College, Oakland, California
Previously unreleased
Exploring relations between sound phenomena such as resonance or difference
tones and the human capacity for creative listening, Toral has developed
a sound world integrating ambient, rock, improvisation and sound design
in multiple experimental practices. Using the guitar since 1984 as part
of a complex electronic instrument, he has collaborated with Jim O'Rourke,
John Zorn, Sonic Youth, Rhys Chatham and Phill Niblock and performed in
many European countries, Canada, Japan and several states in the USA.
His music is published by labels from three continents and he's a member
of the MIMEO orchestra, alongside Keith Rowe and Christian Fennesz. He
believes there is no such thing as noise. "Mills Session
was a long improvisation recorded at the Mills College during 1997's US
tour. Having had access to the Moog modular system at their Electronic
Music studio marked the beginning of my involvement with analog modular
systems, which became essential to my work in the following five years,
especially Violence of Discovery and Calm of Acceptance."
JOÃO PEDRO OLIVEIRA (1959)
Silence to Light, 1992
Computer.
Composer's studio
Electronic and Computer Music, CD Numérica, 1993
Studied organ at the Gregorian Institute of Lisbon and in 1978 began his
music composition studies and attended Emmanuel Nunes’s Composition
Seminaries. From 1985 to 1990, he studied music theory and composition
at the State University of New York at Stony Brook. Besides his activity
as a composer he has also developed a career as an organist, playing alone
and in collaborations on several music presentations, and teaches composition
and analysis at the Aveiro University. "Silence to Light
was commissioned by the Watary Museum of Contemporary Art, to be a part
of an exhibition where painting, sculpture and music are together. This
work tries to create an ethereal atmosphere, in which small fragments
of sounds fluctuate. There are some surprises and some moments of tension,
but they never arrive to a climatic moment, always returning to the crystal-type
textures that allow the silence of the piece to become coloured, as the
title suggests. This work was composed at the authors studio."
ANAR BAND (1972-1982)
Plasticman, 1977
ARP Odissey synthesizer, electric bass.
Estúdios da Rádio Triunfo, Lisboa
Anar Band, Alvorada, LP 1977; re CD Movieplay, 1997
Anar Band was a project by Jorge Lima Barreto (1949), who had been performing
interventions in experimental and jazz music, video art and performance-art
since the late sixties; graduated in Art History and doctorate in Musicology
and Social Communication Theory, he wrote several books and produced radio
shows. "Anar Band was a laboratorial group for improvisations, in
the aesthetics of the free-jazz and electroacoustics. Produced and recorded
in 1976, Anar Band was, on an electroacoustic profile, the first Portuguese
record of improvised music, clearly committed as such. Plasticman
was thought of as Jazz-off mimetic music, in a dialectical avant-garde
aesthetics. Lima Barreto improvised a hyper-expressive atonalistic solo
on an Arp Odissey synthesizer, inspired by free-jazz phrasing, and Rui
Reininho played some rhythmic lines, simulating a swinging bass on a double-neck
Ibanez guitar. A textural pad of concretist influence was later overdubbed
and given the name Sintonic Orchestra."
RENÉ
BERTHOLO (1935)
África aqui, 1996
Makina (digital programmable synthesizer/ sequencer built by the author).
Author's studio, Algarve
Um Argentino no Deserto, CD Sirr.ecords, 2001
Studied painting and fine arts in Lisbon before moving to Paris, where
he founded the group KWY with Lourdes Castro and others. One of the key
figures of the "new figuration" pictorial movement, in 1966
he began making his first “reduced models”, small moving sculptures
using electric powered mechanics and electronics. In 1973 he returned
to painting and applied his electronic know-how to the creation and construction
of a custom-built programmable synthesizer that he called Makina and was
used to produce what he calls "mosic". At present time he is
building a new version, with recent FPGA technology (programmable integrated
circuits). "África Aqui was made in the summer of
1995 or 1996. I remember it was very hot that day and, as there was a
drum sound on that piece, I thought of Africa, hence the title. The sound
of the little goat we can hear was obtained not with a sampler, which
Makina didn’t have at the time, but by means of transformation of
another animal’s sound, extracted from a special integrated circuit,
to which I changed the resistance.”
CARLOS "ZÍNGARO" (1948)
#444-07, 1981
ARP 2601 synthesizer, ARP sequencer.
ZNGR-Nature Morte, Lisboa
Previously unreleased
Began studying violin, and later on dedicated himself to church organ
for two years. Still in the late sixties he began a musical approach based
on contemporary music, electronics and rock, in the Plexus band. In a
musical language where chance is taken as an essential component, Zíngaro
has collaborated with musicians like Richard Teitelbum and Derek Bailey,
and composed music for theatre, cinema and dance. "Recorded at my
own studio, and only a small sample of hours and days of recorded experiences,
#444-07 has to do with a certain absorption in instrumental exploration,
following what I always kept doing with the violin. The Arp was the first
instrument with a specific and semi-autonomous language I had access to,
after years of magnetic tape "concretisms" and more or less
primary treatments of the violin. Also worth mentioning, considering the
violin's limited sound range, a fascination for the enlarged synthesis
possibilities of the synthesiser, particularly of the "old"
resonating VCFs..."
EMANUEL DIMAS DE MELO PIMENTA (1957)
Lisbon Revisited; 1986
Tape, computer, voice synthesizer, filters.
Lisbon
Pessoa, CD ASA Arts and Technology, 1999
Architect, urban planner and composer born in São Paulo, Emanuel
Dimas Pimenta uses virtual reality and digital technologies to develop
activity in these areas. Intermedia researcher who used to disassemble
and reassemble watches at age four, he worked with John Cage between 1986
and his disappearance in 1992, and with Merce Cuningham up to present
day. He believes there are no frontiers nor absolute limits, that we never
teach, only learn, and that ethics is aesthetics. "... in 1986, I
had already composed an other piece based on Fernando Pessoa, Lisbon
Revisited, created with vocal sounds from reading a poem by Pessoa
dated 1926. In Pessoa there is no intention, therefore it is music without
beginning, middle or ending. It’s an invitation to be listened to
without prejudice, without a specific time frame. Spoken poem, synthesized
and filtered voice, mutation, and it turns into sea, all voices, there
being no longer inside or outside. John Cage particularly enjoyed that
piece. There was a strong affinity with one of his essays about Thoureau,
made at the same time."
NO
NOISE REDUCTION (1990)
RLO II, 1995
Modulated feedback circuits with electric guitars and toy amplifiers.
Rádio Litoral Oeste, Óbidos
On Air, CD Ananana, 1997
Since 1990, Paulo Feliciano and Rafael Toral have worked together on a
duo project, working in a variety of areas from sound art to music activities
of a more conceptual or experimental nature. The project investigates
randomness and the resolution of the uncontrollable in real time, involving
the musicians in spontaneous activity, often recurring to radical experimentation
and technology abuse. "On Air was a series of live radio
shows where we performed with highly unstable circuits as instruments.
Their unpredictability, summed with the improvisation and the live "on
air" condition created a high level of risk, a very "dangerous"
musical situation. All this turned On Air's performance into a very lively
and exciting process. Later on, On Air was the starting point for the
mixed-media installation Toyzone (modified toys, custom electronic circuitry,
relays, timers and multiple sensors), produced for "Sonic Boom -
the Art of Sound", an exhibition at the Hayward Gallery in London,
2000.
ANTÓNIO FERREIRA (1963)
O verão nasceu da paixão de 1921, 1988
Atari computer, Yamaha FB-01 synthesizer, magnetic tape.
Author's studio, Cascais
Música de Baixa Fidelidade, LP Ama Romanta, 1988; re CD
Plancton Music, 2002
Studied chemistry but abandoned it to attend Sonology in 1986 at the Royal
Conservatory in The Hague, Netherlands. In 1987/88 he recorded electronic
and electroacoustic pieces that would later become the Música
de Baixa Fidelidade LP. Following its release, he began working as
an expert in noise pollution and bioacoustics. In the late 1990's Ferreira
returned to electroacoustic and acousmatic composition using computer
systems, presenting his pieces in several national and international music
festivals. "In this piece I wanted to merge the real time interactivity
allowed, in those days, by the Atari computer, with the possible, yet
static, richness of a magnetic tape conceived in the studio. The computer
was running a program developed by Daniel Brandt, which I adapted in FORTH,
able to influence several MIDI code generators with respect to time, rhythm,
articulation and tonal and microtonal scales, by means of typed keyboard
commands. This composition is thus some kind of a synthesizer and computer
jam-session, to which the opening and some pre-recorded elements were
later added."
*
CEMAMU: Centre d’Études Mathematiques et Automatiques Musicales
SEV: Studio Électroacoustique de Vincennes – Université
Paris VIII
GRM: Groupe de Recherches Musicales
RDP: Rádio Difusão Portuguesa
IPEM: Instituut voor Psychoacustica en Elektronische Muziek
All works are represented by excerpts edited by Rafael Toral, except Alsee
and Plasticman, included in their complete versions. The collective
pieces were composed by Telectu (Barreto/Rua), Anar Band (Barreto) and
No Noise Reduction (Toral, Feliciano). The "hidden" tracks entitled
plb, xqa and xlb were composed by Nuno Canavaro
and they’re previously unreleased material from the Plux Quba
sessions. Anamorphoses I is a piece for clarinet and tape, being
the present version an excerpt from only the tape part.
Project and research: Plancton Music
Art direction: Rafael Toral
Audio treatments and digital mastering: Noise Precision Mobile
Design: Notype
Produced by Rafael Toral
Plancton Music:
info@planctonmusic.com
www.planctonmusic.com