AGENDA (updating)
Erik K. Skodvin and Otto A. Totland return to Portugal this time as Deaf Center. Opening the night will be Rauelsson, the musical pseudonym of Raúl Pastor Medall, the acclaimed Spanish artist known for his intimate folk songs and experimental soundscapes. subpalco at Rivoli, Porto - 17 January.
Ben Chasny (Six Organs of Admittance) and Norberto Lobo present PAREDES. In the year marking the centenary of Carlos Paredes birth the two musicians come together for a series of concerts in Portugal paying homage, in their own way, to the singular composer and guitarist from Coimbra. Auditório de Espinho Academia, Espinho - 15 February.
After a memorable concert in 2022, where they played Amplifest in Porto, the historic collective from Montreal is back on the road with the new album 'NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD', another moving contribution for the troubled times we live in. Casa da Musica, Porto - 2 March.
“Devendra Banhart: Offering Cloud of Scattered Genitalia” opens at Serralves in Porto on November 21st and includes drawings, watercolors and poems by the author of "Santa Maria da Feira". Serralves, Porto - from 21 Nov. - 18 May 2025.
INTERVIEW: BYUNGSOO YEH
Sound Makers Series (2025) – 06.01.25
"I have not yet found any data on prices for the WE16A horn in the 1920's. It seems that the Western Electric Company did not sell it, but leased it to the theaters, which is why the horn is labelled 'This is the property of the Western Electric Company'. Genuine 16A horns are so rare that it's hard to find records of them ever being traded, so there is no known market price. I saw someone offer one for sale a long time ago for over €50,000..."
MONASTERY OF POMBEIRO
04.12.24
Mosteiro de Pombeiro - 04.12.2024.
Spent a few hours shooting the Mosteiro de Pombeiro (Monastery of Saint Mary of Pombeiro) in my hometown of Felgueiras on a grey day with no rain. The wide 13mm f 1.4 Viltrox lens mounted on my Fuji Xt4 makes these all in the frame captures possible.
This incredible building, just around the corner, was built between the 12th and 13th centuries and was once one of the most important Benedictine order monasteries in the North of Portugal, the oldest of all the religious orders in the Latin Church.
A full piece on the Mosteiro de Pombeiro featuring sound samples from the Pipe Organ and interviews will be posted sometime in early 2025.
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1/ best view of the Church
2/ the Altar full of baroque bliss
3/ seating area in the elevated pipe organ room
4/ the beautiful pipe organ refurbished in 2015 after 200 years of silence
Aesthesic Waves. 21.11.2024
"From The Backstage" is a documentary series exploring the hidden reality of the backstage, sharing the "invisible" Art of the ones that prefer anonymity. From the Backstage to the world, there is art to unravel. A project developed during an artistic residence at Canal180 by Joana Araújo and Mariana Meireles
"Pay your respects to the vultures for they are your future, our fathers and mothers have, they have failed to release us into the welcoming arms of the amethyst deceivers. So pay your respects to the vultures, and to the crows, and to the carrion crows, those Craven Ravens, and to the carrion crows, and to the rooks, and to the vultures, for they are our future. "
lyrics from 'The Last Amethyst Deceiver' by Coil.
John Balance died on this day, the 13th November, 20 years ago. RIP
John Balance at Brainwashed
THIS WEEK
11.11.24
I had the pleasure to hold a minute conversation with Mizmor's mastermind ALN and told him that they were one of the highlights at this year's Amplifest. Their latest album Prosaic, released in 2023 is a modern black metal classic.
A clean slate Amplifest 2024 visual. The 10th edition of the Porto based intimate music festival coincided with Amplificasom’s 18th birthday. Amplifest has been, since 2011, thought out and carefully designed as an intense experience, from music fans to music fans. Highlights this year were Menace Ruine, Chelsea Wolfe, The Body & Dis Fig, Inter Arma and Mizmor.
Artwork crop: Oxbow 'Love's Holiday', 2023 album released on Ipecac.
Artwork crop: Sutekh Hexen & Andrew Liles 'Breed In me The Darkness', 2013 album released on Aurora Borealis.
DIMENSIONAL BLEEDTHROUGH TURNS 15
Released 10 November 2009 – 10.11.24
Krallice 'Dimensional Bleedthrough' turns 15 this 10th November. Their 2nd studio album, was my introduction to the mighty sound of Krallice and ranks as one of the most accomplished pieces of avant Black Metal to grace my years. Celebrating 15 years since this release, in praise of the most unique, hard working band in extreme metal, lead by the prolific record producer and multi-instrumentalist extraordinaire Colin Marston and long time collaborator Mick Barr.
'Aridity' is one of the highlights of the album and makes the Infinite Mix of best tracks from the band, album after album release.
THIS WEEK
06.10.24
“Ice cold and dystopian.” It celebrates “atmospheric pressure, and the joy of full body assaults, via oversized sound systems in undersized club rooms.”
in 'Kevin Richard Martin aka The Bug writes about his new album Machines I-V released on Relapse.'
Machines I-V
"NO TITLE AS OF 13 FEBRUARY 2024 28,340 DEAD" - 04.10.24
"THE PLAIN TRUTH ==
we drifted through it, arguing.
every day a new war crime,
every day a flower bloom.
we sat down together and wrote it in one room,
and then sat down in a different room, recording.
NO TITLE= what gestures make sense while tiny bodies fall? what context? what broken melody?
and then a tally and a date to mark a point on the line, the negative process, the growing pile.
the sun setting above beds of ash
while we sat together, arguing.
the old world order barely pretended to care.
this new century will be crueler still.
war is coming.
don’t give up.
pick a side.
hang on.
love.
GY!BE"
MARCO FUSINATO “Desastres”
15.03.24
Marco Fusinato is a contemporary artist and noise-musician whose work takes the form of installation, photographic reproduction, performance, and recording. As a musician Fusinato explores the idea of noise as music, using the electric guitar and mass amplification to improvise intricate, wide-ranging, and physically affecting frequencies. He performs regularly in the experimental music underground, primarily as a solo artist and has released many recordings on vinyl format.
First performed at the 59th Venice Biennale for 200 consecutive days, 'Desastres' is a sound performance consisting of a wall of amps paired and synchronized with the a wide wall of visuals that summon the spectator into a world of beastly drama and intriguing thoughts.
"I’m going back to exactly the same place my parents migrated from to represent the country they migrated to.
There’s a collapse of time. My parents were born before Italy was a Republic, my great-grandparents were born before Garibaldi unified Italy in 1861.
Australia, like Italy is a recent construct.
I was born on stolen land disguised as some European outpost. I’m at the end of my ancestors’ ancient culture, and simultaneously a parasite on unceded land.
Control-Option-Shift.
Force quit."
in 'Marco Fusinato and Alexie Glass-Kantor in conversation' - Marco Fusinato DESASTRES
Desastres
L’EAU ROUGE TURNS 35
Released in September 1989. 13.09.24
The Young Gods 'L'Eau Rouge' turns 35 this September. Their 2nd studio album, it is usually referred to as their masterpiece and was included in “1001 Albums You Must Hear Before You Die” in 2005, the 1st edition of the book edited by English writer Robert Dimery, who had previously worked for magazines such as Time Out and Vogue. The book is still being updated today and the album still features. Incidentally, been wanting to write about this album's milestone, which is sometime in September (a specific day for the release of the album has never been confirmed), and just heard the news of Roli Mosimann passing aged 68. The Swiss-American producer behind this album's unique sound was a respected drummer, musician and producer who worked with The The, Celtic Frost, New Order, Faith No More, Skinny Puppy, Marilyn Manson, and more.
'La Fille de La Mort' is one of the highlights of the album and makes the Mix #110
JOÃO MARIA GUSMÃO
Animal Farm, Galeria Zé Dos Bois. 04.09.24
Like a phantom, 'Ghost Tape' glimpsed in a room adjacent to 'Rooster at Dawn' is a an absence from the past persisting in the present. As we observe. and as befits any ghost worth its salt, it is unnervingly haunting de to the twistedness of the temporal dilemma that precipitates its absent presence.
In the very same room where 'Fermented Foam' floats another piece perches precariously, playing with paradigms even more preplexing - those of evolution, animal anatomy and proto-cinema. The piece in question is 'Half a Horse', here we witness a sequence of still shots of bizarre bipedal horses, each appearing one ofter another, cleanly cloven in two. Half a Horse repeated.
From the realm of scatology to the field of urology; from number two to number one - from three to four in Freudian jargon; from coprophilia to urophilia, from poo to pee, the journey is teensy, since both events are usually performed within the same revered sanctuary: the water closet the bathroom. Yet sometimes these transpire outside these conventional confines, which brings us to the peculiar subject of the film 'Mozart's Piss Stone'.
In Gilles Deleuze's writings on Cinema, the oft-cited philosopher refashions the concept of "any-space-whatever" (espace quelconque) - a term originally coined by French Anthropologist Marc Augé to describe mundane urban like metro stops and waiting rooms... such transient yet distinctive - void yet fertile spaces abound in and within 'Bedrooms'.
Upon the three-metre expanse of screen, the first encounter a visual opening that whisks us away to a foreign place through landscapes of deviance. Deviant, for they overtly diverge from the norms or expectations rooted in their inherent milieu... as the title 'Flat cows make nice yoghurt' intimates, these bovines have transcended mere animal status, they have become monsters of super-production. Amplified, as is inevitable when the urban sprawl ascends vertically, they reach outward to the horizon to sustain our growing brunch.
Vintage Eiki 16mm movie projectors were used in all rooms.
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