Volume 29 Issue 1 | September 2023

just as quickly vanish. The introduction
matches Carlos Santos’ synthesizer washes
with Bruno Parrinha’s bass clarinet burbles
as spiccato string vibrations, woody clanks
and triangle pings from percussionist José
Oliveira and Luisa Gonçalves’ occasional
piano chords decorate and disrupt the
exposition. One-third of the way along a
combination of tougher guitar frails and Nuno Torres’ alto saxophone
flutters pushes the narrative into horizontal motion. However that’s
swiftly overcome by ray-gun-like whooshes and sul ponticello pressure
from the violist and bassist João Madeira, while Gonçalves’
vibrating patterns from both keyboard and stroked internal strings
reintroduce linear movement. A further expansion of altissimo cries
from the reeds is subsumed by an unvarying double bass groove.
Voltage drones and pinpointed but rugged metal percussion slaps then
affiliate for a logical conclusion. Like much free form music the key
isn’t resolution but the tonal varieties of evolution.
The same could be said for The Wind Wends
its way Round (atrito-afeito 012 atritoafeito.com)
by Montreal pianist Karoline
LeBlanc seconded on three of the six
tracks by Portuguese drummer Paulo J
Ferrreira Lopes. A frequent musical visitor
to Portugal, the pianist’s playing completely
negates the Canadian cliché of deference
and politeness. Pouring intensity
into her improvisations, all tracks are taken at presto or prestissimo
tempos and emphasis is almost always on the ringing bottom notes.
Sympathetically adding press rolls and rolling patterns, Lopes mostly
stands aside from the boiling cauldron of emphasized notes. Perfectly
capable of slowing the tempo, as she does on Porter ses pas, and
able to leapfrog into treble clef tinkles from darker interludes at will,
LeBlanc takes these quick changes in almost literal stride. Tinkling
tonal interludes usually occur at the same time as her other hand is
crunching and clattering basement notes that resonate through the
soundboard and piano’s wood. Always in control, her pumped-note
profusion may resemble those of a player piano, but there’s cerebral
planning attached. Splayed and sputtering piles of notes may issue
from the piano on the title tune and concluding Round Talk yet these
hard returns and dips into darker timbres are heard in symmetry with
unexpected glissandi detours or slapping rebounds. When it appears,
as on The Wind Wends its way Round, that this pressurized playing
will never lose its ferocity, LeBlanc surprises by rebounding to a measured
pace and sudden stops.
What hasn’t stopped is the number of
Portuguese players experimenting with
musical forms and collaborating with
international players. MUEJL’s By Breakfast
(4Da Record CD 006 4darecord.bandcamp.com)
for instance, while recorded in
Lisbon, features local bassist João Madeira,
also on Impromptu, Brazilian clarinetist
Luiz Rocha, French tenor saxophonist Michel Stawicki, Turkish
cellist Uygur Vural and Italian vocalist Elisabetta Lanfredini. With
the nine tracks as consolidated as the band name made up of the
members’ initials, the program displays the tension generated from
string/reed equilibrium, while Lanfredini stretches her tessitura to
approximate timbres from lyric soprano nonsense mumbles, alpine
yodels and wispy basso breaths. Contrapuntal results are expressed
at greatest lengths on Kia’s Vocal Calls as the singer’s melismatic
switch from bel canto to basement mumbles stretches still further
the exposition defined by heavily vibrated bass thumps and warm
clarinet lines. With Lanfredini moving to replications of davening at
one point and Aboriginal chants at another, integration is invoked
when vibrated drones from voice and reed become indistinguishable.
Overall the five constantly move from lightness to darkness as
chalumeau register clarinet and timed sul tasto string strokes can
vanish in a maze of verbal nonsense syllables or, despite cross talk,
bel canto vocalizing can smack up against reed tongue slaps and a
mournful cello line. Furthermore, as demonstrated on Ohai Forest
Suite, vocal mewling doesn’t detract from reed multiphonics, but
climaxes in harmonized breathy tones.
As Portuguese democracy continues to solidify, the hope – and
expectation – is that creative music will evolve with it.
Frédéric Lambert & Ali Kian Yazdanfar
The works for viola and double bass in Iridescence let us
see and hear from a different vantage point: two string
instruments, often found in the shadows and yet filled
with prismatic possibility and potential.
Listen:
leaf-music.lnk.to/lm268
thewholenote.com September 2023 | 53