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21st Century's Catalan music distribution
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labels / recordings
| LIVE RECORDINGS AT THE LEM FESTIVAL |
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CARTER TUTTI -
'Live concert LEM Festival October 4, 2003' cd.ref. GMGTSMMGLASS003 (digi-pack) The music of
Chris Carter and Cosey Fani Tutti is like a whirlwind which permeates a
world without rules. As members of Throbbing Gristle, the group that
conceptualized industrial music whether by colouring dance floors,
under the allias of Chris & Cosey, or by redefining ambient as CTI,
the ability of this duet to subvert electronics and at the same time,
crash any preconceived idea, has always been its trademark. They are
still doing this, and their first album as Carter Tutti, which captures
the concert performed in 2003 LEM Festival, is a good sample of a truly
unusual way of reinterpreting the avant-garde under uncanny
parameters.. ( text: Jesús Brotons)
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RAPOON - 'A Day Of
Visual Geographics' cd.ref. k-100033 (jewel-box) What can we say
about RAPOON, except that every release is a world in its own...This is
the complete raw concert that Robin Storey a.k.a. RAPOON performed for
the LEM Festival, June 1999 in Barcelona, with pieces from over 15 CD
releases, after leaving the Zoviet France project. Experimental but
also intimate sounds from the earth and the ether, this is no trivial
electronics but a magical trip through mental stereoscopic labyrinths,
morphing eloquently all instruments beyond recognition in these 54-
minute long soundscape. Rapoon beautifully leaves to our own perception
and disparity of imagination capacity what he originally devised. We
can only guess and will never probably succeed. And that makes it even
more interesting, this is a “must have” for anyone interested in
true state-of-the-art music.
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BANDA MUNICIPAL DE
BARCELONA plays the music of KOJI ASANO, PASCAL COMELADE & JAKOB
DRAMINSKY, PELAYO F. ARRIZABALAGA and JOAN SAURA cd.ref. GMGTSMMGLASS008 (digi-pack) On October 6th.,
2001 at L’Espai, Barcelona, and in the course of the 5th.
International Festival LEM, the 60 members (wind and percussion) of the
Municipal Band of Barcelona interpreted four pieces composed specially
for them by some of the most original, polyedric and vigorous musicians
of the experimental scene; artists who after having plowed through a
prolific trajectory in personal projects quite removed from tradition,
have not renounced to co-work with other sound registers such as
symphonic formations or chamber groups. Koji Asano, Pascal Comelade
with Jakob Draminsky, Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga and Joan Saura propose and
conduct four marriages, four musical experiences, unabashedly crossing
the codes of the orchestral tradition, pussyfooting from the popular
(the pasodoble "L’Argot du bruit" by Comelade and Draminsky) to
electronic atmospheres ("Fairies in the Wardrobe" by Koji Asano, "Pieza
giratoria" by Pelayo Arrizabalaga) to the impacts of
improvisation ("S. T. 01" by Joan Saura). Crossroads with
as many nuances and surprising elements as the history of music
itself can bring.
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| COMPILATIONS |
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MÚSICA
MITOPOÈTICA DISCRETA - VVAA cd.ref. GMGTSMMBLOCK013 (jewel-box) 'Música Mitopoètica Discreta' is a project by Gràcia Territori Sonor which aims to promote new music being produced right now in this part of the Mediterranean. These are young Catalan bands and musicians in whose work we believe. This CD includes the work of 15 artists: Pau Torres, La Orquesta de la Muerte, Les Anciens, Mil Pesetas, Lrad, Dargelos, Mushka, Mark Egea, Mr Hubba y el Mono Inventor, Don Simón & Telefunken, The Linn Youki Project, Blue, Oscar Abril Ascaso+ Sedcontra, Motor Combo, and Rabbit. This recent compilation of the Gràcia musicians stands out for its research of new musical paths and the variety of compositions, using techniques that range from folk to sampled music. Those who enjoy travelling across most eclectic sounds will appreciate the beauty of these compositions. |
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TON PLAISIR SERA
LE MIEN - EL TEU PLAER SERÀ EL MEU - TU PLACER SERÁ EL
MÍO - VVAA Music by Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, Bernard Donzel-Gargand, Io Casino, Jean-Louis Belmonte, Victor Nubla, Philippe Blanchard. cd.ref. BDLN2006 (jewel-box) In 2003, the
collectives of Gràcia Territori Sonor (Barcelona) and Studio
Forum (Annecy) agreed to co-produce a disk in which three musicians
linked to each collective would create compositions inspired by the
silent and gradual worldwide coup d'état which has brought about
a "new" universal "order" where, regrettably, the first victims have
been individual freedom as well as that of nations as such. Music never
provides solutions nor can function descriptively. These six pieces
refer to the subject, satirise or comment on a material and spiritual
tragedy, yet this brief introduction might hopefully cause us to
reflect. Music is allowed to speak for itself.
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OFF LEM 2002 - VVAA cd.ref. GMGTSMMBLOCK008 (jewel-box) In 2002, the Off
section included in the LEM Festival (and dedicated to the support and
promotion of young emergent creators yet unpublished) put forward one
of its most brilliant and eclectic selections. A set of bands and
artists many of whom are consolidated by now and decisively
contributing to drawing the new experimental creative scene in
Barcelona and in Catalonia at large. Motivated by the fact,
Gràcia Territori Sonor edited this compilation, a cartography of
new sonority, reliable yet heterogeneous. A record with a strong
electronic presence, crammed with landscapes furrowed by arctic
ethereal orbits (such as those created by Osso Bucco, Sonora MTY or
Heidi Mortensen), tracks enticing to dance (CD or Buick’s), and
environments of mystical resonance even such as those created by Aries.
These explorations coexist with Blue and Álvaro Cabrera’s low-fi
experiments and the work with glicthes of Mazza. This travelog is
completed by Marc Egea, with his re-interpretation of the Old Times
with a hurdy gurdy, and by Don Simón y Telefunken, in this case
by means of a regression to a not always innocent childhood with
oriental aftertastes.
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CLÀXONS
ELÈCTRICS cd.ref. GMGTSMA010 (jewel-box) “Clàxons Elèctrics” CD is part of the Mapapoètic project, in the Barcelona Poesia cycle that the Institut de Cultura de Barcelona organizes every spring, within the celebration of the Universal Forum of Cultures 2004. Mapapoètic proposed the citizens the daily discovery of a poem in a different place of the city for 26 consecutive days, starting on the 1st and up to the 26th. of June. The itinerary participants covered to locate each poem conformed a map, the Mapapoètic. Each poem belonged to a universal poet and was enacted by an contemporary cityartist in a non-verbal language. The CD that we present corresponds to Blaise Cendrars’ poem "Electrical Klaxons", recorded live on June 24th at Maumau Underground by Manu Molina and interpreted by the personal universes of the bands: Ranma ½ (Oriol Lopez, Aleix Ruiz), Io Casino (Io Casino, Marta Pérez), Earzumba (Christian Dergarabedian), Don Simón y Telefunken, Guillamino I Motor Combo (Eli Gras, Florenci Salesas). A musical journey across the world of a Cendrars’ poem: “Electrical klaxons Here nobody knows the League of Silence As in every single new land The joy of living and earning money is expressed With the voice of klaxons and the crashing sound of the open exhaust pipes” |
| ARTISTS |
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TIBETAN RED - "Ritual Breathing" cd.ref. 108SFR408 (jewel-box) The newly released CD by Tibetan Red “Ritual Breathing” presents an exploration of the “Air” element in its ritualised form as the main character. For his intent Tibetan Red selected shakuhachis, Tibetan dungchens, gyalings, shenais and didgeridoos along with a furnace and an industrial blowtorch to conform a majestic presence that will wall you around on a fascinating journey of ascensions and parallel dimensions. About this CD Tibetan Red says: “In this recording I tried to encapsulate the line of interest and the pole of attraction around the ideas I am seeking to explore. I am imbued by concepts around aspects of sounds that constitute a major compelling force like, the possibilities of massed sounds aiming at the psychic nature, ritual sound forms as vehicles of alignment and its possibilities of transformation, i.e. mantras, and repetitive sounds and drones in their context as psychology of the continuum.” |
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TIBETAN RED . "Fouta Djalon" cd.ref. GMGTSMMSAND014 (jewel-box) The new Tibetan Red CD Fouta Djalon presents a mesmerizing journey into the landscapes of Ethnic Music, electronics and exploratory sounds. From the first opening track we are thrown into a swirling massive movement of Ethnic chants and sounds that speak of rituals, celebrations and healing ceremonies that lead the way towards the communality of trance. The whole album weaves a tapestry of sound encounters which range from primeval mantra chants to glass factory furnaces and stone fields in the final track. All these sound texts are evolved and played with transformed sounds, high frequencies, samplers, drumming, didgeridoos, voices and winds. In Fouta Djalon Tibetan Red extents an invitation to explore certain aspects of sound expression, in one of the many fragmentary stories about Transmutation. |
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TIBETAN RED -
'Tibetan Red' cd.ref. k-100022 (jewel-box) TThat is what
many of us have been waiting for years at last on a CD. 3 long tracks
including the complete FREEDOM IN A VACUUM tape released in Canada in
the mid-eighties. Shamanic voices and instruments recorded in selected
ambients and electronically treated to reach depths of intensity you
never heard before. Tibetan Red’s proposal is an immersion into
parallel psychic dimensions to explore the contents of the Collective
Unconscious in sound thought forms that instigate and open perceptions
of the unknown. The strength of this first recording is accentuated by
the increasing volume of massed sounds and careful repetition, which
situate us on a primal mystical mode that unveils the meaning of
ancestry. Very serious ritual electronic music, this record is a must.
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TIBETAN RED -
VICTOR NUBLA - "Tao Point" (MCO vol. 7) cd.ref. MCOvol7 (jewel-box) The
collaboration between Victor Nubla and Tibetan Red, finally available
in 2002. An immersion into the womb of drones. Quiet movement music and
static contemplative noise. The strange meditative context of the CD
Tao Point by Tibetan Red and Victor Nubla composes a unique experience
when exploring psychological space. The joint adventure of Tibetan Red
and Victor Nubla was an occasion totally unexpected for both explorers
who, much to their surprise, moved away from their respective line of
work to take up a thoroughly fresh approach. Victor Nubla’s special
series of MCO recordings of which this is volume seven, was the ideal
vehicle for the two talents to meet in a totally new territory to
explore. The Tao itself was the initial concept for an impressive sound
world presented by the this duo. All they did was to tune up to the
inner space concept to find the Point, and translate it into
fascinating atmospheres of mystery, unknown regions, sacred wombs,
brooding shadows of melancholy and chants of longing. All of it wrapped
with the most serious expression of austerity, beauty and
electric rhythm.
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MARC EGEA -
'Karagöz & Hacivat' cd.ref. gmgtsblock011 (jewel-box) Discovered in the
Off section of the Lem Festival in 2002, Marc Egea has constructed a
solid and stimulating career in which tradition and experimentalism
meet in a natural way only to be grasped by those who read the
course of history as crossroads and not as mere old accounts. Using the
polymorphic and versatile sound character of the hurdy gurdy (an
antique instrument that lives between the sky and the earth, at once
mystical and fleshy) and with the occasional support of other
instrumentation and devices -percussion, loops, flageolet or the
taragot, another traditional instrument in this case coming from the
Balcans- Marc Egea draws in this record, a marked musical personality,
the profile of a contemporary Goliard capable of creating sinuous sound
labyrinths where the sharper timbre of hurdy gurdy marries an almost
ecstatic rhythm of composition. A work hypnotic, but also sensual and
even feral, as pieces like "Erebus" or "Il Fischietto" show, and which
in the two final tracks flows towards ethereal and melancholy, which
give name to the record itself.
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PABLO RECHE -
'Gira' cd.ref. k-100043 (jewel-box) This
young Argentinean artist has presented his first album at the Sonar
festival 2000: an exploration of electronic fields that shift between
different planes and explode freely amid seas of silence which gather
the last two years of his recordings. In "Gira" there is an extreme use
of noise by way of an aesthetic-expressive element and a wide range of
environmental sounds: extreme frequencies, modified sounds, white noise
with different bandwidths from shortwave radios, from sweeping the dial
of the broadcasting stations, and loops of noise. The result is an arid
world of sounds that generate great bleakness inviting to
introspection. It’s an overwhelming work, full of dynamics and
intensities in constant variation. An astonishing opera prima.
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1 = 0 - '1 = 0' cd.ref. SATKCD - 016 (jewel-box) Gerard Roma’s
first record appeals, synthesizes and gives a new projection to several
stories of electronics and ambient music. Winner of the Freestyle award
in its edition of year 2000, this work (the title of which suggests
already an eloquent binary landscape), is not a simple appropriation of
knowledge and referents, despite its travelling across
territories recalling the lysergic drowsiness of Tangerine Dream or the
concretion, somewhat playful and ethereal, of Mouse on Mars. It is
rather a matter of an extremely personal work, smartly scaffolded,
intent to flow creatively and with the same ease of rythms, atmospheres
and accidental situations. 1=0 is a summary of contemplative
electronics, bubbling (“el negocio del siglo”, “las abuelas dominan el
mundo”) hypnotic synthesizers ("tonebank") and calculated operations on
the dancing floor ("falso jinete") which despite the heterogeneity of
its ingredients, offers a solid and compact sound which builds up from
the start. Music for this and of other millennia.
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ANA BUSTO/SANDRA
SEYMOUR - Night Fights cd.ref. k-100032 (jewel-box) An exclusive
release. This CD is the audio document the exhibition held at
METRONOM in November 1999, created by Ana Bustos and Sandra Seymour
about the world of boxing and boxers. Structured like an actual ten
round bout, Bustos uses her own live recordings of training sessions at
the Gleason's gym in Brooklyn and of actual professional fights, where
you recognize the primal sound of boxing, the punch or an Oscar de la
Hoya bout.
In Ana Busto’s own words : “the story of every boxer is, almost always, a story of a defeat. Most boxers end up fighting far too long, immersed in a world where they have very few or any power. From this point of view, the boxer could symbolize the individual in the contemporary society: one to be excluded and devoured by the demand and the consumable act. All in all, the boxers are the best thing of the boxing, they are those who manage to turn this sport into passion while also giving a glimpse of its toughness.” (November/December '99/January 2000 bulletin published by Metrònom, Barcelona) The result is an aural excerpt of the intense life of the boxer. A wicked sound-art not apt for the fainthearted. |
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ROSSANA MAGGIA -
Expériences 1982 cd.ref. zin-zin-zon-zan (cardboard sleeve cd) RRossana Maggia lives in Varese. She studied at Padova Conservatory and Florence Lyrical Centre. In 1970, she collaborated with the Varese Cultural Centre with her husband Gian Franco Maffina and, from 1979, she's been collaborating with the « Fondazione Russolo-Pratella ».She sang in Europe's greatest opera houses before dedicating herself to the renewal of the catalogue of futurist music, by means of composing music using free-verse poetry and onomatopoeia and accompanied by Luigi Russolo's reconstructed noise-makers. In 1981, the Russolo Ensemble for voice, piano, string quatuors and Intonarumori played the « Petit Café Concert futuriste » in major theatres and festivals in Italy and abroad: Venice's Fenice, Paris' Centre Georges Pompidou, in Nice, Valence, Vienna, Amsterdam ... In 1997, a CD was released after a concert in Bratislava, Slovakia and another one in 2003 « Rossana e Rossana » under the Studio Forum label. This new CD "Expériences 1982" is a limited edition with four futuristic compositions by Rossana Maggia and two arrangements by Rossana with scores by Fortunato Depero and Giacomo Balla. |
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AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC
- En directe al Bar Elèctric cd.ref. AXNSP 001 (cardboard sleeve cd) On the 23rd and 24th February 2008, the AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC trio recorded live their first cd at the Elèctric Bar, in Gràcia, with the Masamara Studio's mobile unit, in a multi-track system. It was subsequently mixed at The Hrönir Factory and mastered at the Alb Estudi. AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC are Victor Nubla: electric bass clarinet, Quicu Samsó: drums and Albert Guitart: electric bass controlling sampling. AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC is one of the most acclaimed groups in the improvisation scene of Barcelona. It was founded in 2006 by formerly members of two of the most innovative catalan bands in the last two decades: MACROMASSA and KONIEC. This is a live recording of a suite of free improvisations, there are no overdubs. The music is unclassifiable, sometimes it approaches rock, others jazz, but it is electroacoustic improvisation of high voltage, with blasts of light that burst forth from labyrinthine darkness and multiple dialogues among the instruments. Physical yet deep, this recording is a trip in real-time that reflects very well the spirit of this singular band that combines powerful improvisation with a very special mediterranean sensibility. |
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AIXÒNOÈSPÀNIC
- Live Sónar
2008 cd.ref. AXNSP 002 (cardboard sleeve cd) Recorded live on 20th June 2008 at the Sónar Festival. The music of this electric and improvising trio becomes here an extremely powerful performance. Noise and rythm in a magma of sounds generated by electric bass clarinet, electric bass, controlling sampling and drums. The first track is an unlashed 24:11-minute high energy. AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC mutates here to become a power-trio of free rock. The instruments express themselves with force and the dialogue among the musicians becomes a hedonistic celebration of electricity turned loose. The result is a demolishing piece, which does not leave space to breathing in all its course of listening. It is an in-crescendo starting atop and developing into a spiral. The second piece proposes six minutes and twelve seconds of an extreme coda, as if a definitive lethal explosion. This recording collects the entire raw concert given by the band in the SónarComplex, without finishing touches nor additions. It is a true electric discharge, and it means an important change in the trajectory of the group, who opened the Pandora’s box of their particular evolution at the Sónar, and which rin this series of disks reflects the 2008' tour. |
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AIXÒNOÈSPÀNIC
- Can Font cd.ref. AXNSP 003 (cardboard sleeve cd) This is a live recording, however not in front of an audience. Once a year, the trio AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC locks itself in the crypt of Can Font, in the Empordà region of northern Catalonia, to stage a performance under a regime of utter concentration making the most of the sonority of the stone walls. The group works during a week in complete isolation. This disk collects some of the sessions carried out in the crypt in September 2008, three recordings in all. The first one belongs to the initial session of the workshop, conducted immediately after their arrival there. The other two correspond to two consecutive sessions after having taken some silent walks through the Sant Julià de Ramis forrest. The difference between the first session and the other two is very significant. In the first, the aggressiveness and force characteristic of AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC is blatant. However, the subsequent to the silent exercises, show an aspect of this trio unknown until now. It is difficult to suggest "bucholic" as the right word here but in these recordings there are clearly some fresh sensitivities: the improvisation turns oniric and sinuous, evocative and velvety, psychedelic, and the rhythmic complexity and density of the group becomes atmospheric and subtle. For its singularity, this is an indispensable piece for the supporters of the most atomic improvisation trio in Catalonia. |
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AIXÒNOÈSPÀNIC
- Madrid cd.ref. AXNSP 004(cardboard sleeve cd) This record collects the complete concert that AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC gave in the Experimentaclub Festival, in La Casa Encendida of Madrid, on October 4th., 2008. It is a 41 minute and 33 seconds-long piece, an electroacoustic improvisation at a level of intensity that brings it over to the wildest expression of rock. The music evolves organically and keeps connecting the instrumental tensions in a constant movement of extense dynamics and resolutive situations. It is energetic, convincing improvisation and without concessions. One of the most exciting moments of the Experimentaclub 2008. Sometimes it seems that the instruments acquire an animal behavior. We are in front of a characteristic feature of the music of AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC, this animality that results from applying the surrealistic principles to the physicity in their way of improvising. In this concert, l'object trouvé becomes biological and jumps towards you from the depth of the jungle. This recording was made in the culminating point of the 2008 tour and shows the point of maturity of an own language, which is the immense find of these three long-way instrumentalists. |
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AIXÒNOÈSPÀNIC
+ SEBASTIÀ JOVANI - Bajo la
Clepsidra cd.ref. AXNSP 005 (cardboard sleeve cd) TThis is the result of the encounter between AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC and the poet Sebastià Jovani, and it has been recorded live in the Sensxperiment Festival, in Córdoba (Andalusia) on the 31st October 2008. "Bajo La Clepsidra" is a celebration of improvised words and music, a piece of 52 minutes that appeals mental territories connecting with the emotional through the instrumental emergencies and the concentration of dynamic tensions. One of the most outstanding characteristics of this concert is the treatment of the voice. AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC is a group in which, the modification of the sound of the instruments by electronic means is one of the elements of identity. In this case, the voice of Jovani is electronically manipulated by himself, at the same level than the clarinet or the bass. The alternance between text and voice is done precisely in this way. This is maybe the more psico improvisation of AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC in 2008. To the energy of the group is added the sickly exploration of the unconscious world of words that the voice brings. A floating verbality snatched by the instrumental storm. |
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AIXÒNOÈSPÀNIC
- L'àngel blau cd.ref. AXNSP 006 (cardboard sleeve cd) ""L'Àngel Blau" (The blue angel) was recorded at the end of the AIXÒNOÉSPÀNIC tour 2008, in Andorra, during the festival InNova Musica, in the mythical L'Angel Blau club, a venue that for decades has been the main reference for live music in Andorra, and where the myths of jazz and free jazz have passed through. The group dedicated the title of the disk to this historical space and their music was impregnated with a rather jazzy beat. The music of the trio walked different ways along the two parts of the concert (43 minutes). Here, the improvisation is given back a dialogue of three instruments that construct bridges and spaces of escape "...up to two central moments where all three enter in phase... with an extraordinary ascent of the rhythm and of the strength... Something deeply human..." (Philippe Blanchard). This is a work about dosage of tension and of accumulation of energy in a true human sense. And the result is magic. |
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DEDO - Momento
Cero cd.ref. GMHL00H (jewel-box) (12 pages booklet) This is the first cd of the Dedo project, created by Victor Nubla and Io Casino to explore the possibility to combine digital sound (from samplings) and voice. Sampler is used in this record as a base-band. Every possible instrument is present here including orchestra ones. The samplings are taken in an aleatory way from the shortwave radio. With these samplings, Nubla builds the base. There are few arrangements, but everything is subordinate to words and voice. The voice is natural and words very clear. In fact, this is an application of the MCO systems and poetry to pop music. And the results are really fresh, a kind of minimalistic unknown pop. There are two collaborators in this recording: Guillermo Atún and Pau Torres, on sampler and turntables. Jewell box includes a twelve-page book with words and drawings (and a photo of Nubla and Casino signed by Terry Riley!). |
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DEDO - Avatar
cd.ref. GMHL00K (jewel-box) (8 pages booklet) Taking these Dedo series as an application of the MCO discoverings by Nubla to build songs, this second cd is a big step towards a more open concept. This is in part because of the things that happened during the studio sessions: the group started the recording with a new line-up when Pau Torres became an official member of Dedo. However, half way through the sessions, Io Casino left the group, and Nubla and Torres decided to finish the cd with three more guest voices. These movements in the band during the recording, provided somewhat a different music result: longer developments, more organic pieces, and different ways to introduce the words. It is also a rather more instrumental work, with the introduction of guitars and clarinets. The band maintains the collaboration of Guillermo Atún on turntables. The lyrics have the sense of humour of the first cd, but in a more oniric vein. As the music, the words are floating and tell tales of animals, trains, wine... |
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DEDO - Resumen
de
Movimientos cd.ref. GMHL00L (jewel-box) (8 pages booklet) This is the third and last cd by Dedo. After the recording of Avatar, Pau Torres left Spain for Toronto and Nubla decided to renew completely the band to close this trilogy. Angèlica Sánchez (voice) and Ignacio Lois (organ) were invited as new members of Dedo. Nubla plays MCO' sampler as usual and a lot more clarinets. And the music is quite different: if we agree that Momento Cero was an optimistic cd and Avatar, a psychedelic experiment, we can define Resumen de Movimientos as a Gothic and Dark cd, from beginning to end. Samplings are based on orchestras, organ and clarinets give to every track solemnity and sharpness. The voice is dramatic, somewhere between epic and intimistic. The lyrics seem to explain a fragmented story, tortured and sad, but behind the melancholy we find also explicit amatory poetry, something physical and a deep nostalgia. |
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BEL CANTO
ORCHESTRA - En directe a la
Plaça del
Sol 22-08-1985 cd.ref. PARASITE008 (cardboard sleeve cd) ““My first concert in Barcelona was in 1985 during the Festa Major de Gràcia at the Plaça de Sol. It was a ‘concert-vermut’ (concert played before lunchtime). I arrived all alone to Barcelona with my suitcases full of instruments. We chose colleagues on the very same day of the concert; they were musicians from the Gràcia neighbourhood such as Victor Nubla, Gat, Anton Ignorant, Juan Crek…” These are Pascal Comelade’s remembrances of that concert. It was the first of many more to follow in the city. Twenty-three years later we’re able to hear what it sounded like. We offer you a unique document, a piece of history that we now can share with all Comelade’s fans. En directe a la Plaça del Sol 22-08-1985 Bel canto Orquestra Live at Plaça del Sol (Barcelona), 22nd August 1985, during the Festa Major de Gràcia. With: Pascal Comelade, Victor Nubla, Cathy Claret, Juan Crek, Jordi Argelaga, Anton Ignorant, Katy Phipps. Ebú and Eulàlia Barrière. Mastered by Albert Guitart in June 2008 at Alb Estudi. Design: The Hrönir Factory. Edition limited to 200 copies. |
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VICTOR NUBLA - "Clarinets: catàleg d'usos simbòlics" cd.ref. GMHLooM (jewel-box) This cd marks the definitive return of Victor Nubla to the clarinets. It is a solo recording were Nubla plays only clarinets. Maybe one hundred clarinets. The instrument is here manipulated in different ways: effects, cut-ups, multitracking, and also played acoustic. The pieces are organized in five suites of three songs each. The music is so diverse as the title of the cd says: a catalogue of symbolic uses of the clarinet. Some tracks are clearly near to the classical repetitive music, others explore the sense of humour that it is frequent in Nubla's work. There are also tracks with a very mediterranean flavour, hymns, marches and scenes of boats and fishermen. This is not jazz, but rather more like an oniric instrumental operetta, that discreetly uses several styles to give different colours to the situations described. The round and deep sound of the clarinet is rejumped by an accurate production. It is a disk of bass frequencies, where the bass clarinet often drives the music. A certain bluesy atmosphere impregnates the record, even though we should agree that it is underwater blues for nocturnal divers. |
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VICTOR NUBLA - Piedra
Nombre cd.ref. G3VN1 (jewel-box) The first chapter of the MCO series was recorded in 1989 with a Casio SK1 and a shortwave radio receiver. It was released in 1992. The principles of the MCO series (MCO: Objective Compostion Methode) are based on the hazardous exploration of the radiophonic short wave, obtaining random samples and its processing in real time. Nubla started this long MCO project (13 years) under the idea that the sentence of Henry Michaux in 1942 had already been fulfilled with the invention of the sampler: "The keyboard to compose noises. I wait for it. The musical thing is not in the nature, or is in very little amount. But the noises, great and attractiveas they are, base more relative of our life that the rays of the sun. We will reconstruct them, we will submerge in them and, thanks to this device, we will work in the same skeleton of the nature." This first volume of the series is a declaration of intentions and the first exploration of the possibilities of the method. The result is a dark, primitive music, impregnated with an ancestral erotism. Cover engraving by Isaac Pérez Vicente. |
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VICTOR NUBLA - La
Vía Iluminada cd.ref. K100023 (3 CD jewel-box) In 1999 three volumes with the first MCO works, from Piedra Nombre to 1999, were released in a 3 cd-pack. "La vía iluminada", second MCO volume continues the exploration on the MCO system. Nubla himself explains the birth of this system: “I decided to take the radio waves as a source (...) I decided to nullify the loudspeaker of the device to avoid the temptation "to choose" and to be able to have this way not only the broadcasting stations, but with the multiple noises that are usually found in the radio frequency (...) I have access to hundreds of broadcasting stations of the planet and to thousands of interferences and beats, among them the prestigious background of micro-waves or "echo of the Big Bang". That’s how the Method of Objective Composition (MCO) appeared in 1989. (...) Random is the intermediary (...) I steal at random because I think that nothing deserves to be stolen deliberately (...) I never know what the hell I do sample. And I don’t care. That matter is there, and I use it as fundamental matter.” “La Vía iluminada”, is a unique work that acts like a shadow surrounding your body, travelling through your unconsciousness and making you wonder if the universe was trying to send a message at the moment of the recording. Music composed, played and recorded by Victor Nubla between 1989 and 1994. |
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VICTOR NUBLA -
Elogio de la Misantropía cd.ref. K100024 (3 CD jewel-box) The 2nd volume of the pack, "Elogio de la misantropía", contains selected recordings works from 1989 to 1994. It explores the same hypnotic side of the system, with long pieces and morphing moods and continues the search of the rhythmic sounds of the unheard universe hidden in the radio frequencies. It’s a real suitable soundtrack for any Philip K. Dick novel. Music are here sometimes turbulent, smetimes epic, aggressive and cold, alternated by strange passages of calm. There is some kind of humour in these disturbing compositions, but it is ill humour. There is also melancholy, and it is a dark melancholy. Nubla does not make music for Science-Fiction, but his music is pure sonic Science-Fiction. All pieces have a narrative speech, this makes each a story in itself, and moves us to an impossible and unknown architecture, or to a battle, or to a celebration of a place in which, to be sure, we have never been, but quite likely, have dreamt of. |
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VICTOR NUBLA - El
blando recibo de las especies cd.ref. K100025 (3 CD jewel-box) The 3rd volume of the pack, "El blando recibo de las especies" contains recordings from 1998 to 1999, shorter pieces but with the same hypnotic energy, melodies and rhythms. It’s the most disturbing volume of the pack. Strong and dark melodic background noisily-inspiring-introspective ambient in short pieces welcoming you to the twilight zone of the frequencies of the unheard. It is remarkable that Nubla gathers in this volume materials that worked in separate lines in the former two. The mixture of noise and orchestral masses is indistinguishable, and points to later works, like "Neige". In "El blando recibo de las especies" (the soft receipt of species) Nubla gives up the narrative line and creates much more descriptive music, sometimes naturalistic and climatic except in some rock-like tracks, where he resumes his journey into foreign territories, of which probably the spaces described are part of, and he practices narrative once again. Science-Fiction, in any case, with a little surprise: one of the tracks, "Beyrouth 99", signed by Nubla and Pascal Comelade. |
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VICTOR NUBLA -
Seven Harbour Scenes cd.ref. MCOvol6 (jewel-box) High level intensity of deep, emotive ambients. Released in 2002, contains the most beautiful moments of the MCO series. A visual and literary audio film. Impregnating iquid sounds. This recording was released three years after the MCO pack. The evolution of the MCO system is clear, the melodic control is total and Nubla creates a conceptual, intensely descriptive deep piece, impregnated with sea. Composed in hotel rooms in several harbours of Europe, it seems that this music looks intensely towards the sea with the melancholy of someone stranded on land. The press said: “Victor Nubla, a legendary artist in the panorama of European musical innovation, shows once again his great imagination to create surrealistic sonic ambiences that at the same time seem to be as real as life itself. Blending together disquieting melodies with sound constructions based on very diverse sources with a perfect feel, the seven tracks are like captured dreams or nightmares, magically trapped in an audio format. The entire album is bathed in an attractive air of mystery, not lacking in melancholy romanticism, and where there also appear psychedelic and minimalist touches.” (Jorge Munnshe) |
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VICTOR NUBLA - Antichton
cd.ref. GMHL00G (jewel-box) Featuring Robin Storey (Rapoon), Pascal Comelade, Kasper T. Toeplitz, Francisco López, Evru (previously known as Zush), Io Casino, Anton Ignorant and the trio Babel Agatha. Recorded live on the 7th and 8th February 2001. Nubla invited his friends and ten musicians from different countries to meet and play Nubla’s music during two days at l’Espai Teatre in Barcelona. This long suite in 10 parts presents the last five years of Nubla’s sound works in a high powerful performance with a de-luxe line-up. The press said: “a celebration implacable and ecstatic... with a naturality so enviable that it made it seem the complete concert that the electronics of this country had been waiting to live and listen... it looked as if, for the first time, it was not necessary to look elsewhere for the source of a gold mine to be later praised and exalted here.” (Vicens Batalla) |
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VICTOR NUBLA - Neige cd.ref. GMHL001 (jewel-box) Neige was composed using the MCO portable unit in snow covered places in Switzerland and Spain between December 2001 and January 2002. This album features Victor Nubla's performance of the Neige pieces at the Contemporary Art Museum of Barcelona (MACBA) on the 30th of May of 2002. This cd follows the subjacent principle of the MCO praxis, which maintain that sound samples, despite coming from all points of the Earth, organize themselves and take their own personality in the context of the place where the MCO unit acts. This idea about thematic randomness was already present in Seven Harbour Scenes, and takes total protagonism in Neige and in the following (and last) record of the series. The density and coolness of Neige, the voices and the layers of sound superimposed, seem to come from the frozen spaces where it was composed but, in fact, the samples ard obtained from the short wave radio, such as communications between ships and interferences of the microwave background. The music travels through cold lanscapes, creating a progression of sound layers from which voices seem to subtly emerge. A sound that resembles the noise that precedes an avalanche. Sometimes there are orchestral sounds, noise takes an organic role. The photography of the cover belongs to Javier Vallhonrat, who handed it over to Nubla as a result of the coincidence between his photographic work about Graubünden and the sample of voice of the first track (Zug). A coincidence that is essentially objective and therefore, pure MCO. |
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VICTOR NUBLA - Empúries cd.ref. GMHLOOJ (jewel-box) Empúries is the current name of the antique Emporion, the city set up by the Greeks in 575 b.C. on the Catalan coast. It was a cultural focus of trade and art that gathered the Greek, Roman and Iberian cultures until the 1st century. The city was inhabited until the 11th century. It is currently an main archeological site, as well as an exceptional natural park. Nubla installed the MCO portable unit between the 28th March and the 2nd April in the room 303 of the Riomar Hotel, placed between the mouth of the Fluvià stream, the dunes and the beach of Sant Pere Pescador, were Ballard wrote "The Terminal Beach". Here, the music of this cd was composed, during a week in which a violent storm whipped the coastline non-stop. The picture of the cover was taken by Robin Townsend, that same week, in the same place, and shows a ship grounded on the beach. This is the last record of the MCO series which culminates with this recording of Nubla’s concert at the Barcelona Musem of Contemporary Art, on 4 July 2002. The press said: "What emerges is a final work of dense, soothing emotion in which voices and stray melodies clash blindly against each other. Endings often leave such pretty debris behind them." (Ken Hollings, The Wire Magazine) |