circunscrita
david maranha, manuel mota, patrícia machás, simão varela e joão lopes
CD, ed. Namskeio Records (1999)
david maranha, manuel mota, patrícia machás, simão varela e joão lopes
CD, ed. Namskeio Records (1999)
Here’s an under promoted talent. David Maranha is one of three musicians behind Portuguese avant garde ensemble Osso Exótico, which I’ve always thought was Portugue for ‘we really should be much better known’.
Since 1989, Exótico have made a half-dozen increasingly impressive albums, while more recently Maranha has struck out with a series of ‘solo’ efforts, of which Circunscrita is the third. Quite why he now gets solo billing is hard to tell, since at least one Exótico disc contained only a single lengthy Maranha composition, while two out of the twelve pieces on Circunscrita are actually credited to Maranha’s mates.
Around 1994, Maranha brought out two splendid but very different albums, Musica #1 (Korm Plastics) and Musica #2 (Carbo). The first was an absolutely brilliant blend of tonal and microtonal drone minimalism, no doubt fated to become one of minimalism’s more obscure lost masterpieces, while the second offered a mixture of hesitant timbral experiments, tuneful sketches and one or two takes on Nyman-like rhythmic frivolity.
Circunscrita sees Maranha combine the multifaceted experimental approach of #2 with the -drones of #1. It is by no means a stunning success but it certainly deserves more listeners than it’s likely to get.
Maranha belongs to the same minimalist tradition as Paul Panhuysen and Arnold Dreyblatt. It is serious, deeply careful stuff (as anyone who has seen one of Maranha’s complex scores will attest), but informed throughout with a sense of practical experiment and discovery rather than the austere conceptualism or mathematical certainty that certain other minimalists adhere to. Like Panhuysen and Dreyblatt, Maranha pays a great deal of attention to instrumental timbre - he’s used the glass harmonica, didgeridoo and his own ‘maranhophone’ in the past – and his music is as much na opportunity for the sounds to illustrate their own character as it is for him to impose his own structure.
Circunscrita’s instrumentation (violin, double bass, bass drum, harmonium, Hammond organ and guitar) provides a steel wool, scratchily woven timbre. Many of the pieces have na on-edge texture that defies easy listening, the sort of unpleasant, teeth-grinding screech that more polite minimalists leave well alone. Initially, much of it is likely to set nerves jangling, and it may take a while to adjust to the music’s fairly unwelcoming vision. It can also be argued that these compositions generally just set up a texture and leave it to run – there’s less in the way of direction here than on previous Maranha recordings.
For my part, I’m just glad that Maranha has Kept at it for the last decade – the world needs more like him, finding idiosyncratic new sounds in old genres. It may be shrill at times, but Circunscrita is also rich and complex, perhaps even beautiful in its odd way. At its best, it has a poignant, tender edge that deserves to be treasured.
Brian Duguid
The Wire, 200
Some time ago I made the mistake of reviewing a CDR which was a demo of unreleased work by Portuguese composer David Maranha. This one is real. I thought this would contain the previously released CDR, but it's a different work (so whatever happened to the demo CDR, I don't know). The eleven tracks were written by David Maranha except one by Patricia Machás and one by Manuel Mota (whom we know from his own solo CD's). The music is scored for violin, guitar, harmonium, hammond organ, double bass and bass drum. The tone is set in the first piece, or that's what we are supposed to think... this piece is a continuation were previous Maranha (or those from his band Osso Exotico) left us: a beautiful flowing set of overtones of an acoustic nature. But right in track 2 (which is called "#2") something happens unusual. The double bass and bass drum start to kick in within with a beat and the band sounds like a fresh counterpart of Tony Conrad with his pals in the sixties (and hey, there is just a 30 minute retrospective CD out of those 1965 recordings, but if I had to choose for my money, I'd choose Maranha). Other tracks have also some sort of rhythm, like a badly cut tape-loop of some kind of a heavily delayed childrens toy, which gives the music an unusual, but certainly not unwanted bump. And then other tracks (like "#3") are simple, nice and beautiful, like the opening piece.It makes this into a highly varied CD in which many timbres, colours and moods can be heard.Maranha plays around with the ideas of minimal music, but entirely in his own way, taking the subject from various sides.
Frans de Waard
Vital
The "wow"-factor runs high in our new office: this is so amazingly brilliant. A Portugese quartet focussing on where Conrad's "Pythagoras" left off. High piched harmonium clashing into droning cello's, violins, double bassplays with even, mixed down in the background, a pulsing heartbeat surfacing here and there. Think, yes, Conrad, but also the likes of Rafael Toral (hey, isn't he Portugese too?) or even an ambient Hood/Boxhead Ensemble. Gatefold packaging completes this superb disc. Yep: recommended as hell.
circunscrita's black and white cover shows five folks comfortably set up on a small stage, playing their instruments (violin, guitar, harmonium, hammond organ, double bass & bass drum) in such a casually "normal" scene that I expected some kind of down-home improv hoedown music. I was wrong... david maranha leads his bandmates into extended instrumental drones from which slight variations seem to pop. The wheezing harmonium sound trickles a bit, the bass notes slowly register themselves as singular, but for the most part, everything just flows in a unidirectional slipstream. No track names (just numbers) keeps the dozen pieces free of any extraneous meaning... they simply are.
The pieces do vary from song to song (if you can properly call them "songs"), though mainly in timbre, force and density. Brassy waves and monotoned violin strands make #3 (composed (?) by harmonium-ist patricia machás) sounds like a tuning-up orchestra, frozen in time. #5 (4:01) resonates with feedback and softer swirls. Guitarist manuel m. mota contributes #7, a "chunkier" selection, its monochromatic soundforms broken into regularly spaced intervals.
A softly wafting sense of loveliness is discerned from #8's slight interplay of violin and keyboards. #10 (8:02) seems more tense, with darker undertones and paranoically scritching strings. While the sounds of ordinary instrumentation locked into obsessively single-minded drones (especially when following the liner notes' instructions "to play loud") could prove maddening to some, other, more intrepid listeners will allow themselves to be carried along, then be capable of enjoying the subtle fluctuations which emanate from these rivers of sound. Visit Namskeio for more.
David J Opdyke
AmbiEntrance
What a wonderful and moving album! David Maranha is not a newcomer. Portuguese violinist and composer of extreme experimental music, he releases with " Circunscrita " his third solo album for the excellent Swiss label Namskeio, and he also has a long experience with the project Osso Exótico, specialised in resonant manipulations on string instruments. The surprise is big when we realise which are the instruments used to lead to these troubling and superb atmospheres, magically decomposed with the help of a violin, a guitar, a harmonium, an organ and a bass. A hallucinating succession of drones, dark and bewitching, evolving quietly in linear structures, powerful and dangerous. The tracks stretch, in long and interminable notes, that follow themselves slowly, inexorably. The time seems suspended. These sounds, commonly regrouped under the appellation "sound art ", take all their strength on true instruments. An alchemy sometimes heavy and painful for earsthat are not accustomed to these treatments, but so delicate if one takes enough time to get closer to these structures. A rich and intense experience that we can't forget.
Indispensable and essential!
Quel album saisissant et poignant ! David Maranha n'en est pas à son coup d'essai. Violoniste et compositeur portugais de musique expérimentale extrême, il réalise avec "Circunscrita" son troisième album solo pour l'excellent label suisse Namskeio, ayant également une longue expérience avec le projet Osso Exotico, également spécialiste de manipulations sonores sur instruments à cordes. La surprise est de taille lorsqu'on réalise l'emploi réel des instruments utilisés pour aboutir à ces atmosphères inquiétantes et superbes, magiquement décomposées à l'aide d'un violon, d'une guitare, d'un harmonium, d'un orgue et d'une contrebasse. Une succession hallucinante de drones, sombres et envoûtants, évoluant calmement en des structures linéaires, d'une puissance pourtant redoutable. Les titres s'étirent, en de longues notes interminables, qui se suivent lentement,
inexorablement. Le temps semble suspendu. Ces prises de sons, plus communément regroupées sous l'appellation "sound art", prennent toute leur ampleur sur de vrais instruments. Une alchimie parfois pesante et douloureuse pour des oreilles peu habituées à ces traitements, pourtant si délicats si l'on tente tant soit peu de s'en approcher ouvertement. Une expérience riche et intense dont on ne ressort pas indemne.
Indispensable autant qu'essentiel !
Heimdallr
Stéphane Fivaz
July 2000
When held up against the Theatre of Eternal Music presentations of La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and company, many minimalist drone efforts come across like supper-club productions. Eternal music requires patience. You have to be willing to surrender yourself to the almighty drone, a demanding mistress if ever there was one. David Maranha, along with brother André and Patricia Machiás, curates Osso Exótico, Portugal's long-running response to Young's New York-based MELA Foundation. OE has explored all manners of droneological implements, ranging from church organs to glass bottles, over the course numerous albums. David Maranha's last solo effort was an exceptional specimen of piano-string drone ("excited," a la Arnold Dreyblatt or Phil Niblock) that shimmered in timeless suspension. Circunscrita reunites Maranha and Machiás with guitarist Manuel M. Mota, João Lopes, and Simão Varela in a more multihued instrumental-drone communion. Maranha's violin and Machiás' harmonium are the basis for the disc's dozen numbered, otherwise untitled compositions. Their complementary hum-and-hover harmonics and overtones are all one hears in the opening piece and in Machiás' "#3." As the other instruments enter, the sound quickly thickens and broadens. Lopes' bass drum and double bass are surprisingly prominent, lending their lumbering pulse to the moire of meshed microtones in "#2," "#11," and "#6." Varela's Hammond organ is also a distinct color, with a vibrant electronic character quite discernable from Machiás' bellows-driven harmonium. Mota's rough strokes seem distracting when first encountered, imitating crude tape effects in "#4." Once integrated, however, his contributions do help to differentiate the tracks' timbral swirls without falling into predictable patterns. Mota's composition "#7" also stands out, breaking up the ensemble's massed overtones with rhythmic slashes of near minimal-techno deliberateness. The remaining compositions (all by Maranha) work fresh wrinkles into the fabric of Circunscrita's unifying drone, often with beautiful results. "#8" and "#10" are especially euphonious, while the Marnaha/Machiás interplay of "#9" is reminiscent of the Deep Listening Band's unique organic-acoustic alchemy.
fakejazz.com
Gil Gershman
9 feb 2001
David Maranha's third solo CD starts with a very Deep Listening Band-ish exercise, interwoven trebly microtonal drones, then scoots to an even more baroque construction of the same sounds woven around a pulse, using reedy instruments and suspended chords. Sure, it's been done before by Conrad, Toral, etc., but the shivering it induces is awfully friendly. Sounds like fourteen bagpipes trying (and failing) to hold the same note at once, nothing frantic, everything serene. With harmonium, cello, violin, and double bass. Noticeably linear and acoustic, it's not novel, but is a nice continuation of form. [RE]
Since 1989, Exótico have made a half-dozen increasingly impressive albums, while more recently Maranha has struck out with a series of ‘solo’ efforts, of which Circunscrita is the third. Quite why he now gets solo billing is hard to tell, since at least one Exótico disc contained only a single lengthy Maranha composition, while two out of the twelve pieces on Circunscrita are actually credited to Maranha’s mates.
Around 1994, Maranha brought out two splendid but very different albums, Musica #1 (Korm Plastics) and Musica #2 (Carbo). The first was an absolutely brilliant blend of tonal and microtonal drone minimalism, no doubt fated to become one of minimalism’s more obscure lost masterpieces, while the second offered a mixture of hesitant timbral experiments, tuneful sketches and one or two takes on Nyman-like rhythmic frivolity.
Circunscrita sees Maranha combine the multifaceted experimental approach of #2 with the -drones of #1. It is by no means a stunning success but it certainly deserves more listeners than it’s likely to get.
Maranha belongs to the same minimalist tradition as Paul Panhuysen and Arnold Dreyblatt. It is serious, deeply careful stuff (as anyone who has seen one of Maranha’s complex scores will attest), but informed throughout with a sense of practical experiment and discovery rather than the austere conceptualism or mathematical certainty that certain other minimalists adhere to. Like Panhuysen and Dreyblatt, Maranha pays a great deal of attention to instrumental timbre - he’s used the glass harmonica, didgeridoo and his own ‘maranhophone’ in the past – and his music is as much na opportunity for the sounds to illustrate their own character as it is for him to impose his own structure.
Circunscrita’s instrumentation (violin, double bass, bass drum, harmonium, Hammond organ and guitar) provides a steel wool, scratchily woven timbre. Many of the pieces have na on-edge texture that defies easy listening, the sort of unpleasant, teeth-grinding screech that more polite minimalists leave well alone. Initially, much of it is likely to set nerves jangling, and it may take a while to adjust to the music’s fairly unwelcoming vision. It can also be argued that these compositions generally just set up a texture and leave it to run – there’s less in the way of direction here than on previous Maranha recordings.
For my part, I’m just glad that Maranha has Kept at it for the last decade – the world needs more like him, finding idiosyncratic new sounds in old genres. It may be shrill at times, but Circunscrita is also rich and complex, perhaps even beautiful in its odd way. At its best, it has a poignant, tender edge that deserves to be treasured.
Brian Duguid
The Wire, 200
Some time ago I made the mistake of reviewing a CDR which was a demo of unreleased work by Portuguese composer David Maranha. This one is real. I thought this would contain the previously released CDR, but it's a different work (so whatever happened to the demo CDR, I don't know). The eleven tracks were written by David Maranha except one by Patricia Machás and one by Manuel Mota (whom we know from his own solo CD's). The music is scored for violin, guitar, harmonium, hammond organ, double bass and bass drum. The tone is set in the first piece, or that's what we are supposed to think... this piece is a continuation were previous Maranha (or those from his band Osso Exotico) left us: a beautiful flowing set of overtones of an acoustic nature. But right in track 2 (which is called "#2") something happens unusual. The double bass and bass drum start to kick in within with a beat and the band sounds like a fresh counterpart of Tony Conrad with his pals in the sixties (and hey, there is just a 30 minute retrospective CD out of those 1965 recordings, but if I had to choose for my money, I'd choose Maranha). Other tracks have also some sort of rhythm, like a badly cut tape-loop of some kind of a heavily delayed childrens toy, which gives the music an unusual, but certainly not unwanted bump. And then other tracks (like "#3") are simple, nice and beautiful, like the opening piece.It makes this into a highly varied CD in which many timbres, colours and moods can be heard.Maranha plays around with the ideas of minimal music, but entirely in his own way, taking the subject from various sides.
Frans de Waard
Vital
The "wow"-factor runs high in our new office: this is so amazingly brilliant. A Portugese quartet focussing on where Conrad's "Pythagoras" left off. High piched harmonium clashing into droning cello's, violins, double bassplays with even, mixed down in the background, a pulsing heartbeat surfacing here and there. Think, yes, Conrad, but also the likes of Rafael Toral (hey, isn't he Portugese too?) or even an ambient Hood/Boxhead Ensemble. Gatefold packaging completes this superb disc. Yep: recommended as hell.
circunscrita's black and white cover shows five folks comfortably set up on a small stage, playing their instruments (violin, guitar, harmonium, hammond organ, double bass & bass drum) in such a casually "normal" scene that I expected some kind of down-home improv hoedown music. I was wrong... david maranha leads his bandmates into extended instrumental drones from which slight variations seem to pop. The wheezing harmonium sound trickles a bit, the bass notes slowly register themselves as singular, but for the most part, everything just flows in a unidirectional slipstream. No track names (just numbers) keeps the dozen pieces free of any extraneous meaning... they simply are.
The pieces do vary from song to song (if you can properly call them "songs"), though mainly in timbre, force and density. Brassy waves and monotoned violin strands make #3 (composed (?) by harmonium-ist patricia machás) sounds like a tuning-up orchestra, frozen in time. #5 (4:01) resonates with feedback and softer swirls. Guitarist manuel m. mota contributes #7, a "chunkier" selection, its monochromatic soundforms broken into regularly spaced intervals.
A softly wafting sense of loveliness is discerned from #8's slight interplay of violin and keyboards. #10 (8:02) seems more tense, with darker undertones and paranoically scritching strings. While the sounds of ordinary instrumentation locked into obsessively single-minded drones (especially when following the liner notes' instructions "to play loud") could prove maddening to some, other, more intrepid listeners will allow themselves to be carried along, then be capable of enjoying the subtle fluctuations which emanate from these rivers of sound. Visit Namskeio for more.
David J Opdyke
AmbiEntrance
What a wonderful and moving album! David Maranha is not a newcomer. Portuguese violinist and composer of extreme experimental music, he releases with " Circunscrita " his third solo album for the excellent Swiss label Namskeio, and he also has a long experience with the project Osso Exótico, specialised in resonant manipulations on string instruments. The surprise is big when we realise which are the instruments used to lead to these troubling and superb atmospheres, magically decomposed with the help of a violin, a guitar, a harmonium, an organ and a bass. A hallucinating succession of drones, dark and bewitching, evolving quietly in linear structures, powerful and dangerous. The tracks stretch, in long and interminable notes, that follow themselves slowly, inexorably. The time seems suspended. These sounds, commonly regrouped under the appellation "sound art ", take all their strength on true instruments. An alchemy sometimes heavy and painful for earsthat are not accustomed to these treatments, but so delicate if one takes enough time to get closer to these structures. A rich and intense experience that we can't forget.
Indispensable and essential!
Quel album saisissant et poignant ! David Maranha n'en est pas à son coup d'essai. Violoniste et compositeur portugais de musique expérimentale extrême, il réalise avec "Circunscrita" son troisième album solo pour l'excellent label suisse Namskeio, ayant également une longue expérience avec le projet Osso Exotico, également spécialiste de manipulations sonores sur instruments à cordes. La surprise est de taille lorsqu'on réalise l'emploi réel des instruments utilisés pour aboutir à ces atmosphères inquiétantes et superbes, magiquement décomposées à l'aide d'un violon, d'une guitare, d'un harmonium, d'un orgue et d'une contrebasse. Une succession hallucinante de drones, sombres et envoûtants, évoluant calmement en des structures linéaires, d'une puissance pourtant redoutable. Les titres s'étirent, en de longues notes interminables, qui se suivent lentement,
inexorablement. Le temps semble suspendu. Ces prises de sons, plus communément regroupées sous l'appellation "sound art", prennent toute leur ampleur sur de vrais instruments. Une alchimie parfois pesante et douloureuse pour des oreilles peu habituées à ces traitements, pourtant si délicats si l'on tente tant soit peu de s'en approcher ouvertement. Une expérience riche et intense dont on ne ressort pas indemne.
Indispensable autant qu'essentiel !
Heimdallr
Stéphane Fivaz
July 2000
When held up against the Theatre of Eternal Music presentations of La Monte Young, Marian Zazeela, and company, many minimalist drone efforts come across like supper-club productions. Eternal music requires patience. You have to be willing to surrender yourself to the almighty drone, a demanding mistress if ever there was one. David Maranha, along with brother André and Patricia Machiás, curates Osso Exótico, Portugal's long-running response to Young's New York-based MELA Foundation. OE has explored all manners of droneological implements, ranging from church organs to glass bottles, over the course numerous albums. David Maranha's last solo effort was an exceptional specimen of piano-string drone ("excited," a la Arnold Dreyblatt or Phil Niblock) that shimmered in timeless suspension. Circunscrita reunites Maranha and Machiás with guitarist Manuel M. Mota, João Lopes, and Simão Varela in a more multihued instrumental-drone communion. Maranha's violin and Machiás' harmonium are the basis for the disc's dozen numbered, otherwise untitled compositions. Their complementary hum-and-hover harmonics and overtones are all one hears in the opening piece and in Machiás' "#3." As the other instruments enter, the sound quickly thickens and broadens. Lopes' bass drum and double bass are surprisingly prominent, lending their lumbering pulse to the moire of meshed microtones in "#2," "#11," and "#6." Varela's Hammond organ is also a distinct color, with a vibrant electronic character quite discernable from Machiás' bellows-driven harmonium. Mota's rough strokes seem distracting when first encountered, imitating crude tape effects in "#4." Once integrated, however, his contributions do help to differentiate the tracks' timbral swirls without falling into predictable patterns. Mota's composition "#7" also stands out, breaking up the ensemble's massed overtones with rhythmic slashes of near minimal-techno deliberateness. The remaining compositions (all by Maranha) work fresh wrinkles into the fabric of Circunscrita's unifying drone, often with beautiful results. "#8" and "#10" are especially euphonious, while the Marnaha/Machiás interplay of "#9" is reminiscent of the Deep Listening Band's unique organic-acoustic alchemy.
fakejazz.com
Gil Gershman
9 feb 2001
David Maranha's third solo CD starts with a very Deep Listening Band-ish exercise, interwoven trebly microtonal drones, then scoots to an even more baroque construction of the same sounds woven around a pulse, using reedy instruments and suspended chords. Sure, it's been done before by Conrad, Toral, etc., but the shivering it induces is awfully friendly. Sounds like fourteen bagpipes trying (and failing) to hold the same note at once, nothing frantic, everything serene. With harmonium, cello, violin, and double bass. Noticeably linear and acoustic, it's not novel, but is a nice continuation of form. [RE]
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