Rodrigues, Thieke, Rodrigues & Santos

Record Name

Creative Sources | 2005 | CD

Ernesto Rodrigues | violin, viola
Michael Thieke | clarinet, alto clarinet
Guilherme Rodrigues | cello, pocket trumpet
Carlos Santos | electronics

1. 0º 07:55
2. 32º45′ 05:36
3. 56º17′ 03:39
4. 112º23′ 07:53
5. 168º 02:41
6. 245º34′ 05:53
7. 360º 07:00

Recorded on March 29th 2004, at Tcha Tcha Tcha Studio, Lisbon, Portugal.
Recorded by Diogo Tavares. Mixed and mastered by Ernesto Rodrigues and Carlos Santos.
Graphic design by Alfredo Costa Monteiro.
Production by Ernesto Rodrigues.

links:

Listen on Bandcamp: Kreis

reviews:

Someone is trying to enter your room. Only, it is not your room – it’s a nightmare of labyrinths in your conscience. Interrogating the laptop divinities, Carlos Santos only receives an out-of-syntony blanket of spuriousness as a reply: „Mind your own path“. Around this scenario, droplets of unknown fancies crash on the monitor systems of concrete failures, courtesy of Ernesto and Guilherme Rodrigues‘ plucky fingers and arco disintegrations: the two are able to reproduce any splinter of daily life, from nuclear tests to your coffee machine’s whistle at 6:30 AM, without even caring if they made the appropriate choice at that very moment – and of course they did. Michael Thieke’s winds from peripheral urban areas are so delightfully glacial, one would appreciate his sound alimenting an experimental tunnel where people are forced to focalize on fading lights until total blindness. Santos is still there, his will undefeated, trying to put some order in the chaos of these strained theories… For me, it’s a marvellous quartet.

-Massimo Ricci (Touching Extremes)

Laptopper Carlos Santos is perhaps best known for his work with Paulo Raposo on the Sirr label, as part of the group Vitriol and on Insula Dulcamara. Kreis marks his debut on another Portuguese imprint with which he’s become closely associated, Creative Sources. He’s joined by CS boss man Ernesto Rodrigues on violin and viola, his son Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and pocket trumpet and Michael Thieke on clarinets on seven tracks of dense (but never muddy) improv. The most striking quality of the album is the uncompromisingly claustrophobic mix, courtesy Santos and Ernesto Rodrigues – Thieke’s clarinet isn’t so much in yer face as in yer earhole, and the rigorous hardcore extended techniques of Rodrigues père et fils mesh with Santos’s electronics to create a seething web of information overload strangely reminiscent of Brian Ferneyhough’s Time and Motion Study II (panning the cello to the left and the violin to the right makes a welcome change). Like their fellow improv travellers from the Iberian peninsula, Alfredo Costa Monteiro and Ferran Fages, aka Cremaster, with whom of course they’ve performed frequently (the world of improvised music is a very small one), the four musicians here have escaped from reductionism’s eternal pianissimo cul-de-sac by climbing over the wall into an area of deserted wasteland once described by Eric Cordier as „soft noise“. And there’s lots to explore there.

-Dan Warburton (Paris Transatlantic)

O clarinetista Michael Thieke poderia ser o “special guest” de «Kreis» se a música que o contém não fosse iminentemente colectiva, o que significa que não há solos, à maneira do jazz e da improvisação mais convencional, e que todos os instrumentistas cumprem a mesma função, ou melhor, todas as funções chamadas a intervir numa situação musical como a documentada neste disco em boa hora chegado, sem condicionamentos apriorísticos que não sejam os do credo da Creative Sources: cuidar da economia dos materiais e introduzir o silêncio como um som de per si. Não há secção rítmica, nem acompanhantes, nem “front line”, a grande premissa, será oportuno referir, do conceito harmolódico de Ornette Coleman, o tal que nunca ninguém chegou a perceber muito bem do que se trata, a não ser, precisamente, essa sua vertente não-hierárquica. Com a diferença de que, no caso presente, não há melodias nem harmonias que se fundam num eventual paradigma: Ernesto Rodrigues, o mentor desta formação, continua a colocar na prática o princípio de que música é, simplesmente, o nome a dar a qualquer forma de organização dos sons, mesmo que esta nos pareça a-musical. Com o seu filho Guilherme Rodrigues e com Carlos Santos constituiu o trio base que aqui surge, com o acrescento do já referido Thieke, e esse talvez seja o motivo porque tudo nos parece tão sedimentado. É certo que, nos concertos de tal trio, Guilherme troca o violoncelo pelo trompete de bolso e o transístor de ondas curtas, mas há um outro fôlego e um projecto que transcende o mero encontro improvisacional. Com o seu computador “laptop”, Santos consegue neutralizar completamente o carácter invasivo que a electrónica digital pode ter e agir como se também tocasse um instrumento acústico. Não deve ter sido fácil gerir tão imenso comedimento com um poderoso G4. Adiante, para dizer que o que o mesmo «Kreis» mostra implacável despojamento.

-Rui Eduardo Paes (JL)

Very sparse. Very minimal. These musicians make sounds with their instruments that may not have been intended by the original inventors. They do this in a way that at first seems to be a very random. After a longer listen, the inspirations soak through. These “noiselets and sounduals” (my words entirely) may be improvised, but they are very potent in their expressive capability. The listener can “pull” meaning from the limited abstractions much like they would a piece of modern art. I think what I really like about what I am hearing is that the “music” is really in interaction between the musicians, the sounds, and the listener, and each is as essential as the other for the success of the piece. This recording talks to me. That very concept intrigues me, because the goal, of most musicians seems to be more “to sing to you,” than “to talk to you.” Something about that is even more personal, even though the sounds are way out there.

-(Neo Zine)

Portugal’s Creative Sources has quickly become a must listen label. Focusing on music that sits in the cracks between European free improvisation and “lowercase sound” or “eai” music, label head and ace improviser Ernesto Rodrigues has kept up an active release schedule and built up an impressive catalogue of provocative improvisations.
Kreis is a remarkable concerto for hissing steam and buckling metal. Featuring Creative Sources figurehead Ernesto Rodrigues on violin and viola, Guilherme Rodrigues on cello and pocket trumpet, Michael Thieke on clarinets, and Carlos Santos on computer, this one conjures up wind and storm for me. I’m not sure exactly what to make of the circular theme of this recording – “Kreis” in German for circle, and each of the seven improvisations is titled with indices of degrees on a circle – but I like to think that it is ritualistic in its meaning. Using the widest possible array of breath and arco techniques, the quartet almost casts a spell on the listener, inviting us into a space where our own breathing and perceptions are transformed in the inhalations and exhalations of sound. It’s Santos inclusion that distinguishes this disc a bit, unsettling the expectations and moods just enough to keep things on edge. Tight, focused, and with careful attention to dynamics – they know when to let loose with a blast of noise or jarring clack or unison whine – this disc compels from the start.

-Jason Bivins (Signal to Noise)

Mir liegen nun 16 (!) weitere Beispiele vor für Gratwanderungen auf der ‚Pssst… Ich höre nichts… und wenn schon‘-Linie, für Streifzüge durch ein Land, das ein striktes Antidiskriminierungsgesetz gegen jede Art, Unart & Abart von Geräusch anwendet. Kreis (CS 020) bringt ein Wiederhören mit ERNESTO & GUILHERME RODRIGUES, ersterer an Violine & Viola, sein Bruder mit Cello & pocket trumpet. Daneben setzt CARLOS SANTOS (*1967, Lisboa) seinen Synthesizer ein und MICHAEL THIEKE die Klangfarben von Klarinetten. Der Düsseldorfer ist zur Zeit allgegenwärtig, als neuer dritter Man im Gebhard Ullmann Clarinet Trio oder in den Quartetten Nickendes Perlgras und Schwimmer. Mit letzterem war er ebenso schon auf CS vertreten wie solo. Die weiteren Aktivitäten von Santos, der wie gesagt auch als Designer fungiert, umfassen das Duo Vitriol zusammen mit Paulo Raposo, das Laptopensemble [des]integração und seit 2001 auch noch das Label SIRR.ecords. Kreis tastet minuziös alle 360° des Klangspektrums ab. Dabei suchen die vier Stimmen immer neue Verstrickungen und Möglichkeiten der Knotenbildung. Obwohl die Antennen auf dem Cover wie Angeln nach Wellen fischen, herrscht im Klangbild ein Eindruck bewusster ‚Flatness‘ vor. Ein Streichen, Schaben und knarziges Kratzen über Saiten, nadelfeines elektronisches Sticheln, dazu ein Bläser, der gewollt spuckig und angeraut am anderen, dem geräuschhaften Ende der Klangfülle ins Schäbige und Diskante stöchert. So dicht und empathisch sind die Interaktionen dieses Quartetts, als ob man es mit einer Kammermusik von Lachenmann zu tun hätte, wenn auch nur als platt gefahrene warzige Spur missglückter Krötenwechsel.

-Rigobert Dittmann (Bad Alchemy)