|
|
Nothingness
|
 |
label: Own Release
Catalogue number: 03
Release Date: 27 December 2019
File Under / Tag: ambient abstract ambient electronic
avant-garde drone experimental electronic glitch Portugal
Format: digital, digipak CD
Listen / buy on Bandcamp
|
Press Release
"... a poetic reflection on how
beings, things, sensations, feelings, thoughts and
situations come into the world and die. Here and now
is the moment where we can really live. (...) The
work is in constant movement, including pauses and
restarts, moments of standstill and others that are
highly evolutionary. Obviously, we are in the lands
of deep listening, but we feel the influence of the
acousmatic culture and the approach is quite
abstract, even if Joaquim tends to make an
additional filter of these influences, and tries to
push the listener to focus more on the message, in a
penetrating but neutral way. When following this
principle, it’s hard to find other directions; there
is nothing left here to reassure or lead the
listener. It’s necessary to go with the flow. (...)
If we want to use a short simplification, we can say
that most of the elements that define the ambient,
drone and glitch genres are skillfully played with
here in an elegant and reactive mix."
- AURELIO CIANCIOTTA /
Neural
"... a sense of continual rushing forward – perhaps
the unwanted passage of time, as Vitor would have it
– which is mainly done through a sort of evocative
shimmer effect. No sound is admitted unless it first
passes through this filtering device, which causes
it to wobble and tremor like a whole river of lime
gelatin. On top of this basic non-standard drone,
Joaquim adds his dots of glitch and non-specific
burrs, and makes sparing
use of sampled voices. When used, these are all the
more effective for being vari-speeded a pitch or two
lower than normal – an old trick for sure, but it
conveys the impressions of old age, of suspended
animation, of a man from the past trying to speak to
the present. Information, such as it is, is drip-fed
to us across the whole album; it comes in fits and
starts, dribs and drabs, and more often than not we
only catch 23% of the content. The record feels like
a canvas that’s been hung out in the wind and blown
for days, resulting in a smeared and blurred vision.
Excellent."
- Ed Pinsent /The
Sound Projector
"Una splendida opera di sperimentazione sensibile
quella allestita dal portoghese Vitor Joaquim in
“Nothingness”. Materia strappata, nostalgica ed
emozionale, che avvampa, si spacca e screpola in
vertigine ronzante, s’innalza vorticosa e scolpisce
frequenze basse, mugolante come dolce fonderia della
memoria. Come linea d’orizzonte luminosa, di vento,
voci e clangori.
Che qualcosa succhia dai “Disintegration Loops” e
qualcosa in ripetizione ciclica d’intermedio fra le
etno-fumigazioni
degli Zoviet France e le cattedrali di traballante
suono opalescente allestite da Philip Jeck.
Figura chiave della scena
sperimentale portoghese, impicciato da fine ottanta
tra suono, danza, installazioni, teatro e
quant’altro, Joaquim realizza una delle migliori
uscite in ambito ambient/elettroacustico/dronante
degli ultimi tempi.
Di fremiti e immobilità apparente,
col sincro sul battito cardiaco e una stella in
deflagro che t’urla nell’orecchio."
- Marco Carcasi /
Kathodik
"A toada, como habitualmente, é ambiental e soa como
um sedutor zumbido hipnótico."
-
Nuno Catarino /
A Forma do Jazz
“… uma identidade singular, expressa numa música
profundamente íntima eevocativa. Nothingness é
a mais recente entrada nesse vasto catálogo pessoal,
trabalho que parece erguer-se a partir de fragmentos
de memória, presente no que por vezes soam a
interferências de rádio, ténues vozes que parecem
surgir do vazio para nos assombrarem no presente.
(…) uma dimensão quase hauntológica, permitindo-se,
via subtil sampling, ser assombrada pelos distantes
ecos que certos sons carregam e que aqui surgem,
entre o caos organizado do ruído e o lento deslize
dos drones, como marcas com carga emocional
associada, como se o retrato que aqui nos é
apresentado fosse o possível de obter quando se
fecham os olhos e se procura olhar bem fundo para
dentro de nós mesmos, quando nos deixamos cair
livremente num vazio abismo e vislumbramos, durante
a queda, fugazes fragmentos de vivências, de sons,
de cores e imagens, de sabores e sensações. É essa
vertigem, esse vazio – porque na queda interminável
não conseguimos segurar-nos a nada que não sejam
esses pequenos e breves flashes – que Vitor Joaquim
aqui representa, com uma música altamente evocativa,
impressionista e decididamente estimulante para a
imaginação. Como um reconfortante bálsamo aural que
nos devolve a um estado de equilíbrio.
- Rui Miguel Abreu /
Rimas e Batidas
"Nothingess komt in de nasleep van de zoektocht die
Joaquim begon op zijn vorige album (Impermanence
dus), alsook van zijn HAN-project (samen met Emídio
Buchinho) alwaar het duo zich verdiept in de thema
van innerlijkheid en de transformatie en vernieuwing
van de wereld om ons heen. (...) Voor deze
muziekflarden haalt Joaquim een heel arsenaal uit de
kast: piano, stem, keyboards, elektronica, singer
table, gitaar, geneurie, gekletter en gesis plus
allerhande samples komende van kortegolfradio,
Stylophone (uit 1970, een Britse miniatuurversie van
een analoog klavier dat wordt gespeeld met een
stylus.
Het werd uitgevonden in 1967 door
Brian Jarvis en werd het daarop volgende jaar
geproduceerd door de firma Dubreq. Er werden zo’n 3
miljoen exemplaren van verkocht, meestal als
speelgoed. Bekende nummers waarop het instrument te
horen is zijn o.a. ‘Space Oddity’ (David Bowie),
‘Pocket Calculator’ (Kraftwerk) en ‘Icky Thump’ (The
White Stripes).), spectrale toespelingen en
inspirerende notities van ‘Menino do Rio’ (van de
Braziliaanse artiest Caetano Veloso, een van de
scheppers van de ‘Tropicalia’ beweging), ‘Teus
Lindos Olhos’ (van de Nederlands/Kaapverdische band
Voz de Cabo Verde) en ‘Je Crois Entendre
Encore/Romance de Nadir’ van Georges Bizet.
Het knappe aan dit album is dat het zijn belofte
helemaal waarmaakt door de manier waarop de
geluidsfragmenten effectief doorheen de compositie
zweven. Het staat garant voor een zeer sterk begin
(met stukken als ‘Away’, ‘Here’, ‘Everywhere’ -dit
laatste doet ons denken aan Jocelyn Pook, u weet wel,
die vooral bekendheid geniet omwille van haar
bijdragen aan de soundtrack van Eyes Wide Shut),
halverwege durft onze aandacht wel wat te verslappen,
maar op de eindstreep worden de meubelen dankzij het
langste nummer op dit album (‘Nowhere’, goed voor
12’30”) meer dan gered. Met enorm veel deskundigheid
weeft Joaquim in zijn avantgardistische web de
stijlen ambient, drone en glitch aan elkaar, zonder
hierbij (geen onbelangrijk detail) het
achterliggende verhaal uit het oog te verliezen."
- Dimi Brands /
Dark Entries
"Il sound design di questo splendido lavoro riesce a
toccare molti generi: l’ambient innanzitutto, ma
anche l’astrattismo, e come fondo il calore del dub
(sia nel senso della parola stessa, lo spirito con
cui il dub nacque, che come sound). Da sottotracce
nascono le tracce, è in questa specie di doppio
fondo che si trova la (non) culla da cui
scaturiscono i flussi emozionali di Joaquim. Se
nell’ascoltare questo “Nothingness” vi venissero in
mente i primi lavori di Oval, anzi, nello specifico
dischi come “Systemisch“, allora siete sulla buona
strada, perché proprio da quel guazzabuglio glitch
si erge un’entità di tipo corale che mostra quanto
il suono intervenga anzitutto sul risultato che
chiamiamo musica (...)"
- Riccardo Gorone /
Impatto Sonoro
"Que
restera-t-il du temps ? Des bribes de souffles pris
dans un fil de lumière ? Des sons errant à travers
les ages pour se perdre dans le chaos de
l’accumulation?
Avec Nothingness, Vitor
Joaquim poursuit
la quête insensée qu’il s’est fixé, celle de
déconstruire notre monde et de laisser une empreinte
unique, chargée d’histoires en débris et de
métaphysique bouillonnante, enfouies dans le sens
mystérieux de la musique.
Les field recordings se noient dans le coeur
d’astres en chute libre, puisant un réconfort dans
les bribes de voix humaines, vestiges de
civilisations morcelées et de grandiloquence perdue.
Vitor Joaquim nous
offre
un album de pleine conscience, où
l’âge des hommes se confond avec la profondeur
cosmique de l’univers. D’une beauté étourdissante.
VITAL."
- Roland Torres
/
SilenceAndSound
"Wieder ein Musiker der mir bis
jetzt verborgen geblieben ist. Die elektroakustische
Musik von Vitor Joaquim hat mich in Ihrer Dichte und
Intensität sofort in ihren Bann gezogen. In so einer
Qualität habe ich dass lange nicht mehr gehört. Das
Titelstück ‚Nowhere‘ sind 12 Minuten die man 2020
gehört haben muß.
Nicht zu vergessen die vorhergehende Produktion
„Impermanence“ welche eine große Internationale
Aufmerksamkeit erhielt und hervorragend besprochen
wurde…"
into english:
"Another musician that has remained
hidden from me until now. The electroacoustic music
of Vitor Joaquim immediately
captivated
me in its density and intensity. In such a quality I
haven't heard in a long time. The title piece
'Nowhere' is 12 minutes that you must have heard in
2020.
Not to forget the previous production “Impermanence”
which received a lot of international attention and
was excellently discussed ..."
-
CD TIPP
/ Radiohoerer
"Sortie de dernière minute pour le magicien
portugais du glitch ambient, dont les cut-ups
hypnotiques et mutants renouent ici avec le
minimaliste spectral et foisonnant de
l’impressionnant Geography, pulsations organiques en
flux tendu hantées par des samples de voix déformées
où le silence de ce néant du titre, bien que peu
présent à proprement parler, semble s’insinuer dans
les interstices des crépitements qui en forment la
fascinante dynamique pour en démultiplier le
magnétisme et la tension. Un modèle d’économie de
moyens dont le génie se révèle au gré des écoutes
répétées, comme toujours avec l’ancien pensionnaire
des labels Crónica et Kvitnu."
- RabbitInYourHeadlights
/
IRM
|