Reviews Clocks and Clouds

Clocks and Clouds is a co-operative quartet from Lisbon, consisting of trumpeter Luis Vicente, pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro, bassist Hernani Faustino and drummer Marco Franco. Likely Pinheiro and Faustino are better known outside Portugal for their recordings in Red Trio, whether in its fundamental form with drummer Gabriel Ferrandini or with the addition of such guests as John Butcher or Nate Wooley.

The name of the band comes from a composition by György Ligeti which in turn was taken from a distinction made by the philosopher Karl Popper (in a lecture called “Of Clouds and Clocks”) between “physical systems which, like gases, are highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable … [and] … physical systems which are regular, orderly, and highly predictable in their behaviour. (K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973) p.207). It’s an appealing metaphor for the kind of music this quartet plays, which can be heard subjectively at the moving intersection of jazz and free improvisation. If a discourse as open as jazz seems an unlikely “clock,” its status as such depends on the number of “clock” elements it contains: its fundamental rhythmic and harmonic elements as well as a relatively narrow and particular set of timbres and instrumental functions, embedded here in at least the appearance of a “rhythm section with horn.”

The name seems to be an invitation to explore identities within the music, at once highlighting certain predictabilities of pitch and linearity as well as the openness of the exchange and the possibilities of new interactions. It’s a band that listens very closely to one another, often building their collective improvisations out of an assemblage of repeated short rhythmic phrases (clocks?) that overlap and create complex webs of sound (clouds) in which each voice maintains its individuality and its flexibility.

Trumpeter Vicente is a significant emerging talent, a brassy, forceful trumpeter with a quick mind who often provides a linear focus around which this music assembles itself, elsewhere using the trumpet to create an expressive column of air, referencing the muted timbres of the tradition and ricocheting across that inviting chaos of disparate clocks that Pinheiro, Faustino and Franco provide in such joyously playful abundance.

Stuart Broomer 

http://www.pointofdeparture.org/PoD48/PoD48MoreMoments2.html

____________________________________

Those of you who follow these musical blogs regularly will get a good exposure to the Portuguese avant jazz-free-new music scene, which is substantial. The post up for today continues that coverage with the album Clocks and Clouds (FMR CD371-0214), a vibrant seven-part journey to free realms with a quartet of very capable players. You might even say that this quartet in Portuguese terms is a sort of all-star lineup. These are names you may recognize, in other words. Luis Vicente is on trumpet, Rodrigo Pinheiro plays piano, Hernani Faustino is on contrabass and Marco Franco plays the drums.
The quartet has excellent chemistry throughout. Each plays a coherent and creative role realizing the spontaneous collective improvisations that make up the program. As in the best of these sorts of outings all four are very aware of what the others are doing at any moment and they respond, not necessarily in kind, but with contrasting complemental phrases.

All four are fully developed musical personalities. Luis wide-ranging and maybe puckish, Rodrigo fully pianistic and filled with multi-noted ideas, Hernani making full use of the huge range of timbres and attacks to give his bass both textural and pitch-specific insights into the mix, Marco making of his drum kit a multi-voiced symphony of free percussives.

Clocks and Clouds follows the wind with the best kind of creative immediacy. The quartet can and does go to many realms of sound possibilities, alternatingly noteful or sparse, mysterious or matter-of-fact, energy-soulful or other-worldly.

In short this is a very successful free outing from four masters of the art. Words can take you to the starting track, but then the music speaks for itself, eloquently and artfully.

Grab this one and get a good earful. It’s an excellent example of Portuguese avant today.  Grego Applegate Edwards

__________________________________

You can rationalise it any way you want, but some people just have ‘it’, and this ‘it’ is the unnameable gene of musical sensitivity, the undecipherable element of sonic quality, the unfathomable depth of creative art, the enigmatic possession of sound, the ineffable mysticism of spontaneous interaction, the puzzling poetry of polychromatic pointillism, the baffling blasts of beatic beauty, the hermetic harmonies of hoarse hymns, the syncretic swing of soaring songs. You get it. These guys have it. In spades.

Who are they? Luis Vicente on trumpet (yes, again! as in Fail Better), Rodrigo Pinheiro on piano and Hernano Faustino on bass (yes, again too, both from RED trio), and Marco Franco on drums, unknown to me but now no longer.

They meet, they improvise, and they create music with one voice, and this on each piece, as if rehearsed : coherent, solid, well-paced, deep, full of subtle interaction, full of respect and openness to each other without moving away from the core concept, keeping the focus intact, yet free to move, to explore, to challenge and to be creative. Does it sound difficult? It is difficult. They not only move as one, and sound as one, but the music has this inherent emotional beauty that is not a sought effect, but an integral quality of these artists’ skills, yet one that can only appear through interplay with like-minded artists having the same skills, the result of their love for sound and music, and that love, that is far beyond demonstrating skills, or virtuoso pyrotechnics, is probably the core essence of ‘it’, this mysterious marrow of musical magic, this enigmatic essence of expressive aesthetics, this brilliant expansiveness of breathtaking intimacy. Stef  

http://www.freejazzblog.org/2014/09/luis-vicente-pinheiro-faustino-franco.html

__________________________________

Iridescence, Ophidian Dance, Strangely Addictive, Compression Test, etc… avec des titres pareils, on s‘attend à un jazz intellectuel et imagé, à une démarche subtile. Et à l’écoute, on n’est pas déçu. Il arrive encore souvent qu’on se dise que le groupe enregistré X ou Y est moins réussi que la qualité intrinsèque de ses membres. Ici, c’est tout le contraire et à cet égard c’est une belle réussite collective basée sur la phraséologie de chaque individu, trompette (Vicente), piano (Pinheiro), contrebasse (Faustino), batterie (Franco) et leur capacité à coordonner leurs interventions, à doser la dynamique dans un équilibre instable dans une manière de swing décalé qui fait le grand écart avec les lois du genre. Le bassiste est l’intelligent pivot de l’ensemble, le pianiste crée constamment des espaces dans le flux du clavier afin de permettre la lecture des nuances du percussionniste, lequel a retenu la leçon d’un Paul Lovens (sans pour autant être aussi audacieusement extrême), et de relancer les étoiles filantes du trompettiste. On va au plus loin de la structure du jazz libre sans certains des poncifs du genre avec l’expérience d’une pratique de l’improvisation totale, radicale. C’est un travail absolument remarquable et sa qualité se bonifie au fil des écoutes répétées. Vicente a des lueurs dignes d’un Bill Dixon et Pinheiro est un excellent pianiste jazz contemporain qui a intégré comment diriger ses improvisations au piano avec la structure d’un quartet tel que celui de Clocks, qui porte très bien ce nom vu la cohésion millimétrée. Marco Franco gère très bien la dynamique en alliant retenue et agressivité. Il y a un peu de tout dans le catalogue FMR et il arrive qu’on ait d’excellentes surprises telles que celles-ci. Un excellent album qui a quelque chose de très particulier. A recommander.    Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg  http://orynx-improvandsounds.blogspot.be/2015/02/rpr-birgit-uhler-leonel-kaplan-bpa.html

__________________________________

Os instrumentistas que integram o quarteto já conhecido no circuito dos concertos por Clocks & Clouds não podiam ter percursos mais distintos, apesar de todos estarem activos na sua franja mais criativa.

Luís Vicente tem firmado o seu nome em abordagens que vão do world jazz (Luís Vicente Trio) à improvisação electroacústica (duo com Jari Marjamaki), parecendo um Don Cherry do século XXI. Influenciado tanto por compositores eruditos como Ligeti e Messiaen como por Thelonious Monk e Cecil Taylor, Rodrigo Pinheiro tornou-se num dos mais cativantes pianistas portugueses. O sucesso internacional do mutante Red Trio deve-lhe boa parte da responsabilidade.

Inserido nesse mesmo projecto, e com Pinheiro estando igualmente no trio com Lotte Anker, Hernâni Faustino toca o mais imediatista e enérgico contrabaixo da cena, com uma abordagem crua e rude que se expõe especialmente nos Falaise. Por fim, encontramos o baterista Marco Franco em formações que atravessam todo o espectro da improvisação nacional, indo do “mainstream” (Rui Caetano Trio) e do lounge-jazz dos Mikado Lab à célula percussiva Tim Tim por Tim Tum e ao experimentalismo das suas colaborações com Nuno Rebelo.

Ora, o que logo surpreende em “Clocks and Clouds” é a empatia, a cola que encontramos na música. Esta não é simplesmente uma parceria de quatro músicos, mas um grupo com um som colectivo. Como não podia deixar de ser, cada uma das visões pessoais dos seus integrantes reflecte-se no resultado final, mas há algo mais e que não funciona apenas como um mínimo denominador comum dessas muitas particularidades.

O ouvinte é de imediato levado a atentar mais nas interacções e nos jogos inter-individuais, sendo isso, precisamente, o que mais importa num contexto de música improvisada. Tudo o que se ouve neste disco é espontaneamente composto no momento da execução, mas esta opção metodológica não chega a ganhar um cunho estético. A estética abraçada é, muito claramente, a do jazz. Nesse aspecto, há coincidências com as fórmulas do free jazz, mas dificilmente poderíamos identificar como tal o que aqui vem.

Também não serve o epíteto “pós-free jazz” para dar uma ideia do que se trata. Simplesmente, porque o que está em causa parece ser um regresso às raízes do género, e tanto um regresso à estrutura, ainda que por via improvisacional, como à forma, em termos de linguagem. É como se o jazz estivesse a ser reinventado, minuto a minuto. Quando nesta área vamos observando tentativas de partir do jazz para outros desenlaces, o que “Clocks and Clouds” propõe é o caminho inverso.

A tarefa é desempenhada com um brilho e uma entrega verdadeiramente surpreendentes, o que faz deste CD uma edição incontornável. Diria mesmo mais: um marco.

Rui Eduardo Paes 

___________________________________

 

Sobre a sua “Clocks and Clouds”, afirmou Ligeti: “É formada por um conjunto de processos através do qual os ‘relógios’ se dissolvem em ‘nuvens’ e as ‘nuvens’ se materializam em ‘relógios’”, numa referência direta a um ensaio de Popper em que se balizava a escala da indeterminação a partir do que era eminentemente determinável (um relógio, com peças e mecanismos de inequívoca compreensão) e do que não se podia determinar (uma nuvem, cujo significado se apreende pelo exame de todo um sistema e não tanto pelo estudo em separado dos seus componentes). É natural que o conceito atraia improvisadores, cuja ambição, a um nível cultural, é precisamente a de unir aquilo que tem tendência para a dispersão ou aproximar o que subsiste à margem do dogma. Por isso depende da documentação, pese embora seja um risco coreografar-se em demasia a espontaneidade. Nessa perspetiva, este CD, eventualmente inspirado no que acima se referiu, admite sete indexações – mais breve a que ronda os 2 minutos (‘Hunting Song’, tangível como algo feito de materiais encontrados no chão de uma floresta) – mas talvez fosse preferível ficar-se por uma, apenas, que lhe perfizesse a duração integral e que se tornasse mais sensível a tempos diferentes de reação. Até porque, acerca de ‘Compression Test’ (com 18 minutos, o mais longo dos temas), por exemplo, declarar-se-ia, à partida, que trataria da manifestação de uma incoerência semântica não fosse a sua escuta confirmar o caráter extorsionário do modo em que conclui. Isto é, estranhar-se-á falar-se de compressão na mais dilatado exercício aqui presente, mas, também, é verdade que o álbum não afasta a ideia de que põe à vista o negativo de outra coisa, inversa, a que veda o acesso. Não obstante tal perceção, ou, quiçá, por essa razão, revela uma enorme maturidade. Luís Vicente (trompete), no mais retórico dos estilos, desenha azuladas interrogações no ar e, noutros, com pontos de contacto com práticas coetâneas, garatuja-o com avermelhados gases de mau-génio, mantendo-se em cada instância capaz de atribuir direção ao que dá mostras de se realizar sem motivo aparente. Com surdina, é dúctil o sopro que o anima, mas a estabilidade tonal é contingencial ao mais axiomático nas suas emissões. Marco Franco (bateria) é um percussionista que evita a mecânica, ciente de que, entre aqueles de que poderá lançar mão, a repetição é o recurso menos interessante ao seu dispor, escolhendo colorir, comentar com inesperadas pronúncias, tomar posse do corpo do coletivo com uma seriedade praticamente satírica. Rodrigo Pinheiro (piano) move-se no palco com a imposição de um encenador, ora seguindo o guião, ora dele se distanciando de forma imprevisível, ora discursivo, ora dedutivo, alimentando-se dos papéis a seu lado desempenhados ou só pelos pensamentos que o habitam. Em Hernâni Faustino (contrabaixo) está patente a capacidade de tudo ligar, quando toca de maneira rigorosamente ortográfica, ou, ao invés, separar, ao abdicar de qualquer formalismo. Como relógios e nuvens, dir-se-ia. João Santos, Expresso

 

_________________________________

 

Definition of IRIDESCENCE

1: a lustrous rainbow-like play of color caused by differential refraction of light waves (as from an oil slick, soap bubble, or fish scales) that tends to change as the angle of view changes

2: a lustrous or attractive quality or effect (Merriam-Webster Online)

Dit Portugese kwartet verwijst met zijn naam naar een compositie van Ligeti, die op zijn beurt verwees naar wetenschapsfilosoof Karl Popper. Die had het over een onderscheid tussen exacte metingen van natuurlijke processen en een definitie bij benadering. In dat laatste geval kan er geen eenduidige meting gebeuren omdat er meerdere verschijningsvormen zijn of gewoonweg te veel diffuse eigenschappen. Dat is bij goede vrije muziek ook zo, zeker als ze ook harmonische en ritmische zekerheden onderuit haalt: die mijdt eenvoudige labeling en slaagt er in één beweging in om de vrijheid, de onzekerheid en de verrassing intact te houden. Als het niet goed gebeurt, dan blijf je immers achter met een onsamenhangend zootje. Dat is hier niet het geval.

In opener “Iridescence” wordt die capaciteit voor openheid ook maximaal benut door vier muzikanten die zich niet aan banden laten leggen: trompettist Luis Vicente, pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro, bassist Hernani Faustino en drummer Marco Franco. Pinheiro en Faustino zijn als leden van het bejubelde RED Trio goed vertrouwd met elkaar, maar ook met Vicente en Franco leidt het tot een stevige muzikale democratie. Vanaf de start wordt meteen intuïtief en tentatief de speelzone afgebakend. Die opent met lyrisch spel van Vicente en een heel amalgaam kleine geluidjes en mysterieuze franjes van Pinheiro. Proeven zonder de geheimen van de keuken te mogen zien.

Samen worden de stemmen directer en driester, krijgen de trompetsmeren meer karakter en reliëf, wordt de piano gehanteerd om staccato figuren op uit te voeren en krijg je een voorstelling muzikaal schaduwboksen te horen. Zonder Vicente krijg je een samenspel dat natuurlijk wat naar dat van RED neigt, maar toch weer heel anders klinkt. Als je bij zo’n hechte eenheid een schakel weghaalt en/of vervangt, dan kan de samenstelling tot compleet andere resultaten leiden. Hier klinkt Franco doorgaans net iets minder nerveus en gespannen dan drummer Ferrandini van dat andere trio.

In een handvol kortere stukken kunnen de vier soms erg verschillende zones opzoeken: in “Ophidian Dance” lijkt het wel alsof ze allemaal op zoek gaan naar een vorm van oneigenlijk gebruik van het instrument, met gedempte klanken, shaker en gestreken bas, terwijl de sfeer ingetogen, zelfs introvert is. “Strangely Addictive” zet dan weer in op een veel expressiever klankenpalet dat weerbarstiger en rumoerig klinkt, met abrupte sprongen, explosieve spurtjes en vooral een stotterende dynamiek, een nerveuze opeenvolging van kletterende, prikkelende ideetjes. In het ultracompacte “Hunting Song” krijg je wringende toegevingen en getrek in een onheilszwangere minidroom vol kusgeluidjes en zwaar gedonder vanuit de pianobuik.

Een heel verschil met het lange “Compression Test”, goed voor een beweging van achttien minuten die start vanuit een kale, bijna minimalistische aanzet, maar zelfs daar al heel wat kleurveranderingen laat horen. Vicente klinkt aanvankelijk impressionistisch fragiel, maar zal later ook een assertieve stijl laten horen. Wat een geluk ook dat het stuk door de vier niet aangegrepen wordt om de complete bagage ineens op tafel te gooien en voor een ideeënconstipatie te zorgen. Het mag haast stilvallen, wordt vervolgens weer opgepikt en met een zacht dwingende dynamiek op gang getrokken, richting energie en (inter-)actie. Niet eenvoudig om de leidraad te vinden, maar zoals het cliché wil is die zoektocht net de essentie.

Met zijn debuut heeft Clocks And Clouds het de luisteraar niet makkelijk gemaakt, maar met de naam wordt toch al een hint gegeven. Net zoals materie een enorme verandering kan ondergaan onder invloed van een aangepaste waarneming, zo ook kan de muziek op haar beurt de creatieve vermogens van die waarneming aanzwengelen. Het gebrek aan houvast zal voor sommigen een té hoge drempel zijn, maar voor gretige luisteraars die graag zelf aan de slag gaan met muziek in ontmantelde vorm is dit een mooie uitdaging. Guy Peters http://www.enola.be/muziek/albums/24058:clocks-and-clouds–clocks-and-clouds

_________________________________

 

Formado por conhecidos nomes da cena portuguesa, o quarteto Clocks and Clouds lança seu disco de estreia após testar e exibir seu som pela noite lisboeta. A coesão sonora alcançada faz até que pensemos se tratar de um grupo fixo, ou melhor, central na vida dos instrumentistas. Mas esse trata-se apenas de mais um projeto dentre os vários em que estão envolvidos. O baixo e o piano, por exemplo, são protagonizados por Hernani Faustino e Rodrigo Pinheiro, do renomado “RED trio”. Junto a eles nessa empreitada estão Luís Vicente (trompete) e Marco Franco (bateria). Trazendo elementos do free jazz e da free impro, Clocks and Clouds apresenta um som contemporâneo de grande vigor imagético, em que o jogo improvisativo do conjunto é o que mais importa: mesmo quando o trompete parece estar em primeiro (como em “Strangely Addictive”) é impossível os ouvidos não serem captados pelo dedilhado de Pinheiro ou ignorar o vigor do baixo de Faustino. É dessa forma, com o coletivo norteando o percurso, que o Clocks and Clouds desenvolve as sete brilhantes faixas do álbum. Obrigatório para entender o porquê de a cena de Portugal ser uma das mais interessantes da atualidade. Fabricio Vieira http://www.freeformfreejazz.com/2014/07/play-it-again-novidades-de-brasil.html 

________________________________

On Clocks and Clouds, Portuguese trumpeter Luis Vicente is joined by two-thirds of the RED trio, pianist Rodrigo Pinheiro and bassist Hernani Faustino. Marco Franco, who started out drumming in metal bands, takes the place of Gabriel Ferrandini. Clocks and Clouds refers to Ligeti’s composition of the same name, which itself was a reference to philosopher Karl Raimund Popper’s essay “On Clocks and Clouds.” Popper wrote of natural processes that can be measured exactly (“Clocks”) and those that are indefinite and can only be described in approximation (“Clouds”).Based on my limited experience with the RED trio’s music, I thought Clocks and Clouds was going to be a minimal, lower-case affair. Boy was I wrong, but gladly so, because this is a free improv record that has some muscle.Vincente does a nice job expressing himself through both traditional and extended techniques, with the open horn and with a mute. Pinheiro sounds like two piano players at times, exploring the extremes of both the lower and upper registers of his instrument. The RED trio is a group that’s never really clicked for me for some reason, but with Franco in the driver’s seat things really take flight. The whole group engages in lightening quick reactions to each other, and sounds animated and more assertive than I expected. Now I need to go back and reassess RED trio’s catalog, especially their recording with Nate Wooley, Stem.Based on Popper’s definitions, Clocks and Clouds is probably more “Clouds”, an indefinite, in-the-moment process, but the structures the group creates in the moment work. If you’re looking for free improv that’s not afraid to get boisterous at the proper times, Clouds and Clouds is for you. Craig Premo

http://improvisedblog.blogspot.pt/2014/07/luis-vicenterodrigo-pinheirohernani.html

________________________________

Du Portugal nous parvient ce nouveau projet impliquant le trompettiste Luis Vicente, précédemment remarqué dans la formation Fail Better. Le contrebassiste Hernani Faustino et le pianiste Rodrigo Pinheiro constituent quant à eux les deux tiers du Red Trio (dont le « North and the Red Stream » sort cette année chez No Business), et le seul Faustino participe enfin au « Wire Quartet » de Rodrigo Amado, toujours en 2014 et paru sur Clean Feed. D’ores et déjà un beau palmarès pour ce collège de musiciens, auxquels il faut ajouter les noms des tout aussi talentueux Susana Santos Silva, Gabriel Ferrandini, Manuel Mota et autres Luis Lopes. Comme le titre tend à l’indiquer, l’objectif est ici de trouver le point de jonction entre la précision conjecturable de l’horlogerie (« clocks ») et les métamorphoses imprévisibles des nuages (« clouds »). Faut-il y voir une métaphore du jazz et de l’improvisation libre, de la forme préétablie et de l’élaboration impromptue ? Rien ne l’interdit. Ces problématiques, bien des musiciens s’y trouvent nécessairement confrontés. Mais il ne s’agit pas pour autant d’un exercice de style. La note d’intention ne présageant en rien de la réussite du projet, ce « Clocks and Clouds » mérite-t-il votre attention ? Cent fois oui. Ancrées dans le jazz – un jazz débarrassé de ses aspects conformistes – les sept pièces se signalent d’abord par la qualité de l’accord entre les membres du quartette, la sobriété de leur jeu même lors des passages animés, et n’ayant rien à voir avec une quelconque timidité mais tout avec une écologie de la création collective. Les lisboètes œuvrent pour une même cause, une idée commune, jusque dans l’abstraction. Cela ne peut résulter, outre d’un travail assidu, que d’une entente totale sur la nature du projet ainsi que de valeurs philosophiques partagées. Trompettiste fureteur, pianiste ductile, contrebassiste sagace, batteur (Marco Franco) ingénieux : une association de bienfaiteurs pour un grand plaisir d’écoute. David Cristol  Improjazz

_______________________________

O quarteto Clocks & Clouds não revela apenas uma elementar afinidade estética com o RED trio, mas partilha com este uma ligação umbilical, ao incluir na sua formação dois terços do trio: Rodrigo Pinheiro e Hernâni Faustino. A estes juntam-se Luís Vicente (trompete) e Marco Franco (bateria). O método de trabalho assenta numa base similar: uma improvisação livre, aberta, equilibrada. O quarteto apresenta-se ao mundo com um disco de estreia lançado pela editora inglesa FMR Records. A música é democrática, nascendo e crescendo dos contributos individuais que muitas vezes se escondem em favor da unidade colectiva. Pinheiro (piano) e Faustino (contrabaixo) transferem para este quarteto a sua abordagem instrumental: original e dialogante. Na bateria, a inclusão do polivalente Marco Franco traduz-se numa injecção de criatividade. E, apesar do equilíbrio geral, é necessário realçar o trompete de Vicente como peça-chave, pincelando a música de cores vivas, arrastando o grupo para sugestões mais doces. Nuno Catarino http://www.publico.pt/culturaipsilon/noticia/improvisacao-sem-fronteiras-1676147

_______________________________

One of the earliest records of the Portuguese masters in my possession, recorded at Namouche Studio, Lisboa. Anticipates fantastic future careers of Luís, Rodrigo and Hernâni. The quartet plays seven songs , belonging clearly to the free improvisation genre. For my ears, there are some similarities to Bill Dixon’ Vademecum quartets. The opening “Iridescence” is a peaceful, yet full of emotional content track, lasting nearly a dozen of minutes. The piano solo à la Andrew Hill is stupendous. “Ophidian Dance” is shorter and more delicate. “Strangely Addictive”is notable fr a great muted trumpet, and the fantastic work of the section, including the piano. The highlight is 18 minutes long “Compression Test”, It is an abstract piece, with fragmented motifs and plenty of meditative moods. “Trios” is contrast is the most melodic track played half of the time by the piano trio, and another half by the trumpet plus section. The short, but very powerful “Hunting Song” ends this excellent album.

As explained by Stuart Broomer: “The name of the band comes from a composition by György Ligeti which in turn was taken from a distinction made by the philosopher Karl Popper (in a lecture called “Of Clouds and Clocks”) between “physical systems which, like gases, are highly irregular, disorderly, and more or less unpredictable …[and] … physical systems which are regular, orderly, and highly predictable in their behavior. (K.R. Popper, Objective Knowledge: An Evolutionary Approach (Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1973) p.207). It’s an appealing metaphor for the kind of music this quartet plays, which can be heard subjectively at the moving intersection of jazz and free improvisation. If a discourse as open as jazz seems an unlikely “clock,” its status as such depends on the number of “clock” elements it contains: its fundamental rhythmic and harmonic elements as well as a relatively narrow and particular set of timbres and instrumental functions, embedded here in at least the appearance of a “rhythm section with horn.”” Maciej Lewenstein 

 

________________________________

 

I znów Hernani Faustino, choć tym razem jego instrument częściej przypomina sobie o swych akustycznych charakterystykach. Demokratyczny kwartet domykają tu, jego kolega z RED trio, pianista Rodrigo Pinheiro, perkusista Marco Franco i … kolejny ulubieniec Trybuny, trębacz Luis Vicente. Panowie w trakcie studyjnej rejestracji (Lizbona!) funkcjonują jako Clocks and Clouds.

Siedem odcinków wolnej improwizacji, kształtowanej z dużym pietyzmem i odpowiedzialnością za każdy dźwięk. Nie brakuje rzecz jasna dynamicznych i hałaśliwych pasaży (kluczowy, 18-minutowy fragment Compressio Test), ale pozostają one w zdecydowanej nierównowadze w stosunku do fragmentów nieśpiesznych i z lekka zadumanych. Vicente – jak to ma w zwyczaju – lubi improwizować czystym tonem swego blaszaka, do czego po trochu inspiruje także współpartnerów. Pinheiro częściej płynie po klawiaturze niż bawi się w preparacje, Faustino jest stanowczy, ale nie pyskuje, a Franco robi swoje, pozostawiając Kolegom pole na swobodnie dyskusje. Gdyby taki ECM chciał jeszcze wydawać muzykę kreatywną, Clocks and Clouds udanie wpasowałby się w ich dawny idiom. Piękna i wyrafinowana płyta! http://spontaneousmusictribune.blogspot.pt/2016/06/pedro-sousa-hernani-faustino-gabriel.html