“Garden”
Clean Feed cd369
personnel:
Bruno Parrinha – Sax alto, soprano, clarinete
Luís Lopes – electric guitar
Ricardo jacinto – cello and electrónics
cd tracks:
. 1351 ♫
. 1402
. 555
. 516
. 1030 ♫
. 744
. 221
release information:
All music by Parrinha, Lopes, Jacinto
2, 3, 6 Recorded February 20th 2015 by John Klima at Scratch Built Studio, Lisbon;
1, 4, 5, 7 Recorded February 22nd by Joaquim Monte at Namouche studio, Lisbon.
Mixed and Mastered February 2016 Joaquim Monte at Namouche Studios, Lisbon, Portugal
Produced by Parrinha, Lopes, Jacinto
Executive production Trem Azul
Cover photo by André Cepeda
Design by Travassos
Special Thanks to Márcia de Brito, Kathleen Becker, Fala Mariam, Sei Miguel, Joaquim Monte, John Klima, André Cepeda, Nuno Martins.
liner notes by Sei Miguel
Trying to avoid useless warnings, nevertheless let me say that this is not an easy sound, for it is not, it is complex, all encompassing, and somewhat abrasive – but ever so delicate also … So, let’s get down to what matters, writing for people who are interested without petty fears, namely those who know that comfortable listening usually equals the most forgettable of spiritual communions – because deviated from their natural courses – gastronomy and sex being good examples.
Between breaths the conscious breathing with every breath. And the other breaths, equally necessary but … mechanical respirations – thus the plural. And the lack of art. How to distinguish, in the midst of so much right to express, and artistic if you please, how to distinguish? In music I distinguish between executed chant and the chant that is sung, as simple as that. Less simple are the degrees of fine tuning of those same chants, degrees of tuning that are actually extremely difficult, sensitive historical reasons and derived memory. Meaning: same Chants: slow, not so slow, rapid and more so. The slow Chant modulates itself in numerous details that are speeds that are really speedy; just as the rapid Chants require a real placidity, to be chanted or encountered and understood. From this follows, but ESSENTIALLY, the musician’s capacity to say, in his terrifying loneliness, his world that is ours but belongs to other days and other nights. I spell the mastery of Lopes and that of Jacinto. Luís Lopes, the most patient guy in the world when not the most impatient, there remains that childlike reverberation, he has that cosmic innocence. Ricardo Jacinto, master of all of his ambiguity, acoustic, electric and electronic, arco and pizzicato, demonstrates the greatest precision and purest urgency. I emphasize the case which to me is kind of miraculous of Bruno Parrinha’s “voice”, a veteran who knew how to (a)wait. And who seems to have played like that from birth, and getting better, never anything gratuitous now emerging from hisreed…
But these lines that I write cannot fail to mention, inevitably, daily life on that land’s end inhabited by men, finisterra, be they those Capes, Roca, Espichel or St. Vincent, or you should not have me as the chronicler; so here goes: reluctant to espouse forms, in art most particularly in art, the genuine local citizen fears, with some reason, that a form espoused be found to be misleading, or worse: ridiculous; and that in Portugal is lethal (or thought to be which comes to the same). Thus, the post- modernist vocation of this place of ours well before post-modernism declared itself (here it did not) “abroad”. In rare cases, those that a certain type of suicide failed, this obligatory but spontaneous P-M happens in a work like this, a multiform work, that is absolute given that it encompasses IN THE FORM both being and not being, objectively of its moment in its period but anti-programmatic, thus reconciling the most inscrutable noise with a clean phrasing, and in this way preserving a precious link with all possible pasts.
Before or after the day – for it is a record of twilight and night time – notice (feel) how in this music sadness itself proves liberating, a painful but valid way of confirming its fine tuning. Indeed. Giving thanks to God (?) and listening, with the ears that He gave us and with the heart and even with the eyes
I guarantee
Sei Miguel, Lisbon, February 2016
press release:
The formation of a band is usually justified by the common conceptions and interests of its members, but in the case of this Portuguese trio we have an example confirming that the inverse idea can also be true. In fact, José Bruno Parrinha, Luís Lopes and Ricardo Jacinto couldn’t be more different from each other, be it in terms of backgrounds, vocabularies, used techniques and even attitudes. Parrinha comes from jazz studies and is now committed to a very refined idea of free improvised music. Lopes has a past in rock and his projects either glue that type of sound with open form jazz or go to the domains of extreme guitar noise. Also a sound sculptor and instalacionist, Jacinto works usually in the field of experimental music, with some interludes inside the pop song world. When this trio presented itself in concert for the first time, it was a surprise. They found a key to communicate musically and that key is a collective capacity to measure energy and to weigh materials. “Garden” is a marvel of controlled, even when intense, improvisation, and of a very disciplined, and yet seeming loose, economy of sounds. It’s amazing listening to how Parrinha clarinet or saxophones deal with only three or four notes in a piece, exploring the combinations until he can’t do nothing more with it. How is it possible to do so much with such few elements? How can Lopes and Jacinto do more with less, even using electricity and electronic processors? It’s a mystery, and an incredibly seductive one. Rui Eduardo Paes
