david maranha e Gabriel ferrandini
LP, 2011 ed. Mazagran Records (Portugal/Italy) MZ002
This Portuguese duo combines organ and percussion in a freeform context that has very little to do with free jazz. Maranha is less interested in playing recognisable chords or melodic runs, preferring to approach it as a mysterious generator of textures. One moment it’s growling like an angry wookie, the next it’s humming and whining like a maxed-out guitar amp. That leaves room for Ferrandini to provide the detail, rolling out a delicate tapestry of sustained percussive activity from drums, cymbals, gongs and chimes. Energy ebbs and flows in billowing gusts but just when it feels as if the storm is about to break, it dissipates back into simmering intensity. Once you learn to stop waiting for a decisive pay-off, the set follows its own perfect logic.Daniel Spicer
The Wire
Based in Lisbon, Portugal, hammond organist David Maranha and drummer Gabriel Ferrandini have something to say, judging from the live vinyl LP release A Fonte de Aretusa (Mazagran MZ002).
It's 40-some-odd continuous minutes of the duo droning, psychedelisizing and freely traversing a quietly dense soundscape that resembles an expanded explosion of what Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt might have done in an early Soft Machine performance. It has that sort of rhythmically open, interestingly distorted organ tone and flippy pulseless drumming that was known to come about for a minute or two in the course of a long jam by the Softs.
Of course there's a bit more to it than that. There is staying power generated betweeen the two. It goes in various directions, creates variations on the variations of the deceptively static overall sound, and never gets boring.
I find myself drawn to this one for reasons that do not have a cognitive logic. It's well mapped spontaneity on a trip without a literal map, a sonic journey that thrives from its simple premises.
Not everyone will be drawn to this one. But I think if you have read the description you will know if it is going to be you. . . or not. Play on players, dream on dreamers.
It's 40-some-odd continuous minutes of the duo droning, psychedelisizing and freely traversing a quietly dense soundscape that resembles an expanded explosion of what Mike Ratledge and Robert Wyatt might have done in an early Soft Machine performance. It has that sort of rhythmically open, interestingly distorted organ tone and flippy pulseless drumming that was known to come about for a minute or two in the course of a long jam by the Softs.
Of course there's a bit more to it than that. There is staying power generated betweeen the two. It goes in various directions, creates variations on the variations of the deceptively static overall sound, and never gets boring.
I find myself drawn to this one for reasons that do not have a cognitive logic. It's well mapped spontaneity on a trip without a literal map, a sonic journey that thrives from its simple premises.
Not everyone will be drawn to this one. But I think if you have read the description you will know if it is going to be you. . . or not. Play on players, dream on dreamers.
Grego Applegate Edwards
E' uno dei nostri "protetti" il portoghese David Maranha. Un artista di cui spesso ci siamo occupati e che abbiamo sempre ammirato per la capacità di fondere istanze d'avanguardia con una materia elegantemente rock, come successe per l'ottimo Marches Of the New World o per il successivo Antartica. In quei casi era il rock d'origine velvetiana ad essere sottoposto ad un trattamento di elongazione, quasi di sfaldamento del canone stesso alla base di quella materia oscuramente rock, mediato da una capacità ossessiva figlia del minimalismo meno eterodosso e dello sperimentalismo timbrico più acceso. Ora in A fonte de Aretusa -omaggio al mitico specchio d'acqua siracusano che ha sempre attratto poeti da Pindaro a D'Annunzio, da Milton a Pope- il portoghese unisce le proprie forze con un giovane e talentuoso drummer, Gabriel Ferrandini, e sposta la propria visuale sull'avant-rock più claudicante e oscuro. La formula hammond/batteria non perde in ossessività, sia chiaro, ma l'aggiunta di un drumming cosí vario e pulsante rende la fiumana droney dell'organo di Maranha ancor più libera di indagare i meandri più ossessivi/ossessionati della visuale musicale del portoghese, ma facendola risultare più viva e devastante, ipnotica e cerebrale che in passato.
L'album nasce da un a session live catturata in quel del ZDB di Lisbona e poi suddivisa in due cut, uno per facciata di vinile che mettono in chiaro, se ce ne fosse bisogno, lo spessore del progetto Maranha. Dopotutto, ce lo confessava nello speciale Ad Libitum di un paio di anni fa, la visione sonora del portoghese é un continuum senza soluzione in cui le origini lontane -l'esperienza Osso Exotico, il solo album Circunscrita - non sono poi così lontane.
Sentireascoltare
Stefano Pifferi
Portuguese David Maranha is one of our “protected ones”. An artist that we often review and always respected for his ability to combine avant-garde forms with a sophisticated rock-structure, as in the excellent Marches of the New World or the subsequent Antarctica. In those cases, the”Velvet Underground-rock' was the departure point to a process that resulted in longer pieces and modified the canon of this darken rock matter, that was handled through a obsessive capacity typical of the less heterodox minimalism and of the deepest timbric experimentation.
In this “A Fonte De Aretusa” -a tribute to a mythic reflecting pool in Syracuse that always inspired many poets from Pindaro to D'Annunzio, from Milton to Pope- the Portuguese join his talent with the young and brilliant drummer, Gabriel Ferrandini, and move their vision over the most dark and limping avant rock. The combination hammond/drums do not lose obsessiveness, but the addition of a drumming so rich and pulsating make the droney flood of Maranha's organ even more free to explore the most obsessive twists and turns of his musical inspiration, that is developed as more vital and incisive, hypnotic and cerebral than before.
The record comes from a single live session at the ZDB in Lisbon and after divided in two cuts, one for each side of the vinyl that clarify, even if it was not necessary, the depth of the Maranha's idea. In fact, he explained it in the special issue "Ad Libitum" a few years ago: his musical vision is a continuum without interruption that cames -the “osso exótico” experience and his solo album “circunscrita”- are two faces of the same coin.
Sentireascoltare
Stefano Pifferi
Sur le noir de couverture du 33 tours apparaissent en blanc son titre (A fonte da Aretusa) et les noms des musiciens qu’on y entend : David Maranha (orgue Hammond) et Gabriel Ferrandini (batterie, percussions) – le premier est un élément d’Osso Exótico et de Bowline, le second est membre du RED Trio et partenaire occasionnel de Rodrigo Amado.
Souvenir d’un des concerts que Maranha et Ferrandini ont donnés ensemble depuis 2010, A fonte da Aretusa tremble puis oscille sous les effets d’un orgue à drone et de coups donnés au loin sur un kit de batterie. L’exercice est de domptage : Ferrandini claquant sec pour ramener Maranha sur ligne droite.
Comme attendu, l’opposition affichée mène au grondement : la vingtaine de minutes de la seconde face augmentant d’un peu de noise l’exercice instrumental qui balançait jusque-là entre ambient inquiète et post-rock dernier. Mais à la sortie, voici Maranha recadré : le drone fin dans lequel il a trouvé refuge est ainsi de conclusion.
Le son du grisly
Guillaume Belhomme
Latest collaboration of the acclaimed minimalist portuguese musician David Maranha with the talented free-form drummer Gabriel Ferrandini in a 42 minutes of a virulent organ+drums out-jazz drone improvisation. “A fonte de Aretusa” is the convergence between the legendary organist David Maranha and the free-form young revelation drummer Gabriel Ferrandini. Based in Lisbon, Portugal this duo started in 2010, with regular rehearsals and concerts that lead to this first album that captures a bloody free live act where the music is pulsing and vibrating over a droning flow of sound. 42 minutes (here divided in two, due to vinyl restrictions) of a massive attack to the listener among free percussive frames and brutal organic drone merging together into a powerful and permanent movement of vivid music captured in one of their first live performances at ZDB venue.
Portuguese composer David Maranha has always had an ear for knotty, unlikely textures, combinations of timbre of timbre that raise the eyebrow and pucker the mouth. Previous releases have seen him match unorthodox instrumental combinations with a love of steady state persistence. His brittle, bonescraping minimalism faintly nods to the likes of Phill Niblock or Arnold Dreyblatt but remains essentially Maranha’s own. Drummer Gabriel Ferrandini mixes extremes of space, density, momentum and gesture in his thoughtful dialogues with Maranha organ, always displaying impeccable taste and timing.
Fabio Carboni
Soundohm
D'un côté David Maranha à l'orgue hammond, de l'autre Gabriel Ferrandini à la batterie et percussion. Duo enregistré live au ZDB de Lisbonne en novembre 2010. Long mouvement interrompu par le changement de face d'un flux de vibrations free et hypnotique. Cela s'inscrit parfaitement dans le travail de David Maranha et ravira autant les amateurs de drone que de free !
Metamkine
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