khettahu |cs191

APortuguese guitarist Abdul Moimême is starting to catch my ear. After a solo CD on Creative Sources and a collaboration with percussion duo Diatribes, here he is in a duo with computer performer Ricardo Guerreiro. This is a studio session recorded in June 2010. Moimême has developed a technique to play two prepared guitars at once. Guerreiro captures and manipulates his playing in real time. Kettahu is atmospheric, heavy without getting dense, quiet in its own way. A captivating listen. François Couture (Monsieur Délire)

Para além de músico multi-instrumentista (guitarra, saxofone tenor, clarinete, flauta), Abdul Moimême é arquiteto. Voltado, sobretudo, para as práticas da improvisação, tem não obstante uma perspetiva organizadora, para não dizer composicional, das tramas que encadeia com as suas ferramentas de trabalho.
Flashback muito a propósito: enquanto, no outro extremo do espaço (Salão Brazil, em Coimbra, durante o festival Jazz ao Centro), os 4 Corners de Ken Vandermark, Magnus Broo, Adam Lane e Pal Nilssen-Love ensaiavam, Abdul desenhava-me um diagrama de harmónicos e microtons. A apresentação que lhe apeteceu fazer-me era cerradamente técnica e revelou-me bem a postura deste arquiteto da música…
Ricardo Guerreiro é, por sua vez, um informático musical com estudos aperfeiçoados no IRCAM. O seu instrumento é o computador e neste utiliza o sistema SuperCollider, o que quer dizer que, em vez de gerir parâmetros, introduz código. Cria música como se estivesse a digitar um texto.
Releio o press release de um concerto que deu há dias com Miguel Cardoso e a videasta «generativa» Joana Fernandes Gomes: «(…) confronto da composição algorítmica interativa com realidades distintas, definidas pela variável n, em que n pertence ao intervalo de zero a infinito.» Perceberam pela citação qual é o seu posicionamento nisto das músicas? Pois…
Ora, «Khettahu» é uma maravilha. Apreende-se uma miríade de sons metálicos, logo ecoados e moldados eletronicamente, num jogo de fantasmização de entidades sonoras que, já por si, não parecem deste mundo. Raramente isso se evidencia, mas aquele vibrar de chapas, arames e não sei o que mais provém de duas guitarras e da parafernália que é colocada sobre elas, até as ditas desaparecerem de vista.
Este é um disco de transmutações, de organismos vivos que continuamente se renovam. Ouvimo-los a mexerem-se, a lutarem entre si ou a cooperarem em prol de uma qualquer finalidade unificadora. Aqui é como se copulassem, ali conspiram para um ataque que, surpreendentemente, nunca chega a acontecer.
A música é tensa, por vezes sinistra, e no entanto tem uma leveza e uma fluidez que a impede de se tornar claustrofóbica. É como se o comboio para Auschwitz fosse conduzido por Peter Pan e pela Sininho: uns pós de perlimpimpin fazem os trens levantar voo e tomar outro destino que não o dado a suspeitar.
O anunciado horror movie transfigura-se numa história de encantar. Primeiro é Lovecraft, depois Ursula LeGuin. Está aqui a banda sonora ideal para a leitura de «A Fábrica do Absoluto» de Karel Capek, o mesmo autor de ficção que cunhou a designação «robot» e que se diverte nessa novela a imaginar nos objetos a mesma essência que a física quântica muito mais tarde neles descobriu. O livro foi – pasme-se! – editado em 1922.
É uma música insistentemente dissecada por Abdul Moimême e Ricardo Guerreiro esta que ainda guarda substância para se oferecer a outras dissecações pelos seus ouvintes. Nem as redondezas da Gaga dariam tanto néctar! Rui Eduardo Paes (Bitaites)

I’ve not been so well this evening. Without troubling you with the details I’ve had a stomach upset that has made listening uncomfortable, but having spent much of today lazing about reading and listening to music I think I’ve listened more than enough to be able to write. I also rather stupidly opted to upgrade OSX on my MacBook Pro tonight to the new Lion release without stopping to think that it would render the machine unusable for the best part of an hour and a half as time enters that new dimension when “20 minutes of install remaining” somehow manages to follow “2 minutes of install remaining”.

Anyway, music. I actually spent some time today with the pile of old classical vinyl I picked up at the weekend, and two different versions of Wagner’s Prelude and Liebstod to Tristan und Isolde in particular. I have struggled for quite some time to get to grips with Wagner, primarily because I just can’t stomach opera, but these purely instrumental pieces are stunning. I’m no going to write about those pieces this evening though, I’m simply not qualified to do so yet. I also listened to a couple of other CDs, a duo by Abdul Moimeme and Ricardo Guerreiro on Creative Sources, and also the new Keith Rowe solo on Bottrop Boy. The run through the Rowe disc was a first listen, so it will be a few days before I write anything on that one. The other duo disc though is one I’ve been playing and enjoying for a few days now. I mention the Rowe release though because ironically the first time I came across a CD involving Abdul Moimeme, a collaboration with the Diatribes duo. When I wrote about that CD I found comparisons in Moimeme’s playing to that of Rowe (both work with tabletop guitars) and for an admittedly very short while, given the obvious pseudonym nature of Moimeme’s name I even wondered if it may even have been Rowe playing on the release. For this new duo disc though, I can happily report that Moimeme has achieved the considerable feat of making his instrument sound nothing like a normal guitar, but also nothing like Keith Rowe, so that’s put that one to bed.

So on this new disc with Guerreiro, which is named Khettahu Moimeme actually plays two guitars simultaneously, prepared with “small and large objects” while Guerreiro works with an “interactive computing platform” that appears to be something along the lines of a Max/MSP set up that allows him to sample Moimeme’s sound, process it and feed it back in to the music in real time. So we sort of actually hear a third guitar again if you count Guerreiro”s contributions as guitar-like. There are seven tracks here that, given their titles seem to had been taken from a large collection of improvisations recorded on one day in June 2010. Three of the pieces though, named #29.1 through to #29.3 seem to exist together as one long work, the divisions within which seem unnecessary.

So the music is actually really nice in many places. the opening track, confusingly named #26 is a kaleidoscope of chiming tones, slithering metallic scrapes and computerised, slightly altered, slightly recoloured version of the same, all tumbling together in a piece that sounds like a heavy wind gusting through a wind chime factory. Its actually a quite beautiful piece, a dense mass of details all sliding past together, but at the same time a very delicate, finely arranged work that belies its improvisational construction. The rest of the album works through similar ideas, with Moimeme working through a wide range of sounds ranging from crunchy, gritty abstraction to colourful tones and chimes and Guerreiro working in a very subtle, restrained manner as he returns the altered sounds back into the music’s mix, never really allowing his computer’s potential power to dominate and seemingly happy to act as if a fairground mirror, reflecting Moimeme’s sounds back only after warping them, significantly at times, only slightly at others. His contributions are clear, it is often obvious that what we are hearing is a synthetic reworking alongside the ‘real’ guitars, and yet its subtly done, with the digital and analogue sound worlds combining very well, complementing each other rather than competing.

Khettahu is a very nice, thoroughly captivating listen. The way it continually shifts and changes, reinventing itself (quite literally) keeps you fully engaged. The fact that the musicians aren’t so well known, combined with the manner in which so often Creative Sources releases are ignored will probably mean that this CD won’t get mentioned that much, and will escape the attentions of many that would probably enjoy it. That’s a shame as this is a release that deserves to be heard, performed by two musicians I suspect we will hear much more of in the future. Richard Pinnell (The Watchful Ear)

ABDUL MOIMÊME ist ein vertrauter Name im cs-Zirkel, solo, mit dem Variable Geometry Orchestra oder mit dem Schweizer Duo Diatribes. Mit gleich zwei präparierten Tischgitarren kreiert er Sounds, mit denen RICARDO GUERREIRO, sein ebenfalls aus Lissabon stammender, sechzehn Jahre jüngerer Partner bei KHETTAHU (cs191), in einen Dialog eintritt mit seiner interactive computing platform, die im Kern aus einem Laptop besteht. Beide streben bei einem Maximum an Spontanität nach einem Maximum an Formgebung.
Improvisieren heißt Komponieren und umgekehrt. Der erste Eindruck ist der von einer Baustelle oder Werkstätte, mit schrill schleifenden Metallteilen und wummerndem Kompressor. Dazu plinken und harfen aber zarte Laute, die den industrialen Eindruck ins Surreale verschieben. Diese Mixtur bestimmt auch die folgenden Klang-'Bilder',
metallischer Klingklang, ein Scheppern und Dongen, Scharren und Klirren, aufgeblasen zur Großbau-stelle, zur Werkhalle. Wobei die Plastizität der Klänge ein verwirrender Widerspruch in sich bleibt - was wird hier gebaut, was wird hier fabriziert? Eiserne, drahtige und glockige Illusionen sind im dritten Abschnitt nächtlich gedämpft, von der Decke der Tiefbaustelle tropft es auf Bau- und Maschinen-teile, die sich schrill dröhnend in die Träume der schlafenden Bauarbeiter bohren. Das dreigeteilte, ausgedehnte '#29' wälzt sich ganz in einem träumerischen, unheimlichen Modus, federnd, heulend, rumorend scheinen da andere als menschliche Hände und Kräfte am Werk. Als wäre die 'Bau-stelle' nur noch Spielzeug für den Wind, rostig gezerrt von Hitze und Kälte, von den Klauen des Zerfalls, als wäre das Dröhnen des Materials eine Art von 'Erinnerung'. '#36' verbindet glucksiges Getropfe mit wieder massivem Gedröhn und scharrendem Beben, wobei mit den letzten quietschenden und knarzigen Geräuschen Moimêmes spielerische Hand ins Bild kommt. Die Illusion gibt sich als Spiel zu erkennen, als Menschenwerk. rbd (Bad Alchemy)

Guitarist Abdul Moimême is a member of the Lisbon free improvisation scene centred around Ernesto Rodrigues' Creative Sources Label, and has recorded with the Swiss electronics / percussion duo Diatribes (Complaintes de Marée Basse on Insubordinations) and (as a tenor saxophonist) with Lisbon's free improv large ensemble, the Variable Geometry Orchestra. There's also an excellent solo CD called Nekhephthu. Here he plays two table-top electric guitars, employing bows, metallic percussion, various forms of preparation and objects dropped and scraped against the strings. His partner, Ricardo Guerreiro, on "interactive computing platform,"
processes the guitar sounds in real time, a shifting mirror and transformer of Moimême's sonic materials. Improvised music is difficult to describe in detail, but Moimême's qualities as an improviser seem to directly reflect his day job as a municipal architect in Lisbon (projects include a communications tower and public housing). This translates into his music in a keen sense of auditory space and precise relations within it; the use of the two guitars and electronics creates an extraordinary sense of distance, and echo, as much spatial as temporal, is as prevalent as the guitar itself, its metal-on-metal scrapings and pure gamelan sounds consistently reconfigured, like musique concrète. This is a recording of untoward beauty where the imagination and an exacting ear are unlikely to separate the original sounds from the alterations and reimaginings, or to locate them in time, which, by the end of the three long movements of "# 29", has begun to stretch elastically, to magnify, reverse and disappear. It's a stunning sonic meditation situated in the interstices between Moimême's guitars and Guerreiro's electronics, a Balinese train yard in outer space. SB (Paris Transatlantic)

Abdul Moimême (guitares électriques jouées simultanément et parfois préparées) et Ricardo Guerreiro (interactive computing platform) se connaissent assez bien pour que le premier ait accepté de faire de ses sons improvisés le matériau de départ des jeux de transformation du second.
C’est ce que raconte Knettanu sur l’air d’une musique qui hésite sans cesse entre délicatesses et expressions exacerbées. Ici, le chant est raisonnable : la guitare est gentiment frappée, mais l’ordinateur la retourne et change ses murmures en munitions qu’elle projette par salves. L’exercice connaît quelques longueurs, mais la dernière pièce, bruyante, vacille avec furie au point qu’on ne peut regretter s’être déplacé jusque-là. Guillaume Belhomme (Le Son du Grisli)

Megszámlálni sem tudnám, hány olyan improvizációs duót hallottam már, ahol az egyik fél játékát a másik valós id?ben manipulálja. A Khettahu sem szól másról: Abdul Moimême gitárjának hangja Ricardo Guerreiro laptopjának szoftverein átsz?r?dve alakul valami olyasmivé, amir?l aztán egy percig sem gondolnánk, hogy penget?s hangszert?l származik. Az ötlet és a módszer nem éppen újszer?, a lisszaboni duó mégis frissen közelít az elgondolás megvalósításához.

Abdul Moimême nevével a svájci Diatribes duó Complaintes De Marée Basse cím? kollaborációs lemeze kapcsán találkoztam el?ször, igaz, akkor nem tudtam játékáról markáns véleményt alkotni, zenéje teljességgel elveszett a hangok tengerében. Jelen album már egy jóval letisztultabb munka: bár duólemezr?l van szó, a f?szerepl? mégis Moimême. A gitár mellett tenor szaxofonon is játszó, a zene mellett építészetet is tanult Abdul Moimême egy Új-Mexikó-Dublin-Madrid-Boston körút után tért vissza szül?városába, Lisszabonba, ahol kisebb-nagyobb formációk mellett 2003-as megalakulása óta tagja a Variable Geometry Orchestrának, 2006-tól pedig a portugál szabadzenei színteret menedzsel? platform, a Freemusic motorja. A Khettahu lemez másik szerepl?je, Ricardo Guerreiro interaktív számítógépes folyamatok tanulmányozásával és fejlesztésével foglalkozik; és kutatásainak eredményeit zenei kísérletei során is felhasználja. Állandó zenészpartnerei közé tartozik többek között Ernesto Rodrigues heged?s, Ulrich Mitzlaff csellista, és Carlos Santos laptopzenész.

A Khettahu felvételeit Moimême és Guerreiro 2010 júniusában rögzítette; a lemezre felkerült öt és hét perc közötti id?tartamú részek feltehet?en egy hosszabb rögtönzés darabkái. A tagolás jót tett az anyagnak: amellett, hogy az album gond nélkül átlátható, nincs hiányérzetünk, nem t?nik úgy, hogy egy nagyobb lélegzetvétel? m? töredékeit, esetleg zanzásított változatát hallanánk.

Moimême két állványra fektetett „apró és nagyobb tárgyakkal” preparált gitáron játszik egyszerre. A gitárok néhol durván szemcsés, néhol karistolós-csikorgós hangjait meglep?en tapintatosan, visszafogott módon manipulálja Guerreiro, majd az eredményt késleltetés nélkül küldi vissza az éterbe. A végs? mix a gitárok eredeti hangjait is tartalmazza, ám az analóg és a digitális hangok közötti kontraszt közel sem zavaros: a két világ tökéletesen simul egymásba. Guerreiro természetes módon követi Moimême játékát, reakciói megfontoltak és mindig tökéletes id?zítés?ek. A Khettahu jól m?köd? zenei koncepciója az állandó változást, az elmozdulást, a megújulást, a folyamatos újrafelfedezést modellezi.

Sokan vádolják a portugál Creative Sources-t azzal, hogy túl sok korongot jelentet meg, köztük több olyat, amit más lemezkiadók esetleg nem is szánnának kiadásra. Több helyen olvasni: a label egyre csak terebélyesed? csúnya szóval: híguló katalógusában mind kevesebb értékes, izgalmas munkát találni. Ez a Khettahura a legkevésbé sem igaz. Figyelemreméltó alkotás. (Improv.hu)

Très étrange collaboration entre le guitariste portugais Abdul Moimême et le compositeur électroacoustique Ricardo Guerreiro. Sur Knettanu, publié par Creative Sources, Guerreiro utilise une plateforme informatique qui modifie en temps réel les deux guitares préparées d'Abdul Moimême, dès lors, la frontière se brouille entre le temps présent et le temps écoulé, entre l'improvisation et la composition. Car, comme c'est indiqué dans les notes, les deux musiciens se connaissent très bien et sont habitués à jouer ensemble, ils peuvent par conséquent préméditer ce qu'ils feront. Mais ces sept pistes enregistrées en studio se réclament tout de même de l'improvisation, la forme musicale est sensée être l’œuvre de la "spontanéité" et de "l'intuition". Où est la part de spontanéité dans cette connaissance intuitive peut-être, mais qui permet une organisation rationnelle des sons? Spontanéité et préméditation brouillent les pistes et font de cette musique un voyage où l'auditeur est emporté par des flots sans savoir dans quelle eau il nage, ou tente de nager.

Il y a les guitares d'Abdul Moimême à l'origine, guitares étranges aux sonorités industrielles, sereines, espacées, métalliques, puis à travers les modifications opérées par la plateforme numérique de Guerreiro, les sons prennent une autre dimension, remplissent et forment un espace sonore nouveau et étranger. A travers le travail de Guerreiro, les sonorités d'Abdul Moimême acquièrent une ampleur surprenante et extravertie. Il y a un décalage nécessaire entre la source sonore déjà entendue et la création de Guerreiro, décalage qui perd la musique dans un espace-temps paradoxal où le temps passé forme le temps présent. De plus, au niveau purement sonore, en-deçà des procédés de création musicale, les sons (co-)produits par l'électronique ne ressemblent à rien, paraissent parvenir d'une autre planète, une planète où l'espace et le temps seraient abolis d'une part, mais où l'attraction s'évanouirait; car les sons flottent, nagent, brillent, et se répercutent contre les sources d'Abdul Moimême qui forment le futur pour eux, car la guitare est toujours contemporaine d'un signal modifié déjà écoulé.

Le voyage est vraiment original certes, et le procédé pose des questions intéressantes, mais je ne pourrais pas dire que j'aime cette musique. Les pièces ont toutes leur intérêt formel et sonore, mais l'étrangeté et l'aspect extraterrestre donnent surtout l'impression et la sensation de se perdre. D'un côté, je pense qu'il suffit d'accorder toute sa confiance aux musiciens et de se laisser guider à l'intérieur de ce vaste univers méconnu pour en apprécier toutes ses subtilités, seulement, je crois aussi que l'auditeur devrait pouvoir se guider par lui-même, et il serait beaucoup plus facile dès lors d'apprécier réellement cette musique radicalement étrange et autre. Un univers sonore très original et singulier peut-être, mais pas dénué de longueurs... A écouter par curiosité surtout. hjulien (ImprovSphere)

For two simultaneously played, prepared electric guitars and "interactive computing platform". Not sure what the latter does, though I assume it's something along the lines of regurgitating Moimeme's guitar as the music carries that tonality pretty much throughout. It's echoey, spacey; reminds me somewhat of Laswell's 90s explorations which....isn't a great thing to remind me of. Much resonant scraping, ringing tones, darkness. Better than that, with some welcome harshness tossed in here and there but overall, far too meandering and, well, spacey, for my taste. Brian Olewnick (Just Outside)

The performative approach this duo made up of by Portuguese guitarist Abdul Moimeme and electroacoustic composer Ricardo Guerreiro on this recording is somewhat atypical even if it's not totally new: it's based on the temporal postponement of the two performers, as Ricardo's machines treat (or I'd better say they swallow, partially digest and then spit out) what they grab from Abdul's timbrical digressions on his two electric prepared guitar, which he manages to play simultaneously, so that it seems they hold a sonic dialogue where they fill the listener's space and change the setting in a very funny way without breaking the rules of improvisational music (I sometimes prefer to call them precepts!), as this performance was entirely recorded during one session in Namouche Studios in Lisboa on 19th June 2010. Workout's result is really remarkable, a circumstance which might be explained by reciprocal musical deep understanding, an important help to the blending of their trades... Therefore I should not be impressed by the balanced dosage of digital and analog, as computer "voice" is never intrusive or untimely even when Guerreiro manages to unfold sonic plots in a more distinguashable or when he manages to blunt geometries evoked by the sinister squeking of some guitar clips, plane or alternatively sharp metallic extrusions, nebulize pulse after pulse more stressed streaks, before finding refuge in the silent protection of something close to white noises, so that it sometimes looks like seize some Abdulìs thunder by the hair in order to let them reach some harshness without getting too cacophonic. A listening experience to be tried! Vito Camarretta (Chain DLK)