Iberian Round-Up, Four Old, One New

Alfredo Costa Monteiro
Paper Music
Hazard
CD21

Alfredo Costa Monteiro
Rumeur
Creative Sources
010

Cremaster
Infra
Antifrost
2015

Ernesto Rodrigues/Alfredo Costa Monteiro/Guilherme Rodrigues/Margarida Garcia
Cesura
Creative Sources
008

Ruth Barberan
Capacidad de Perdida
Creative Sources
018

I recently received a small stack of discs from the Barcelona-based Alfredo Costa Monteiro, works from the last several years that partially filled out my meager collection of new Iberian improvisation. They certainly reinforce my opinion that the music being created in that neck of the woods deserves far more exposure. Some brief notes:

The disc containing Monteiro’s “Paper Music” comes tightly sealed in a crumpled paper sleeve, pressed into its container like a panini. I was almost reluctant to open it, rather liking the idea of an encased product that might forever remain beyond appreciation. But, of course, my acquisitiveness and curiosity won out. Reading the inscription, “all the sounds of this cd were made with paper. no effects”, I naturally expected to hear a variety of softish, swishing sounds. Hardly. The disc is almost entirely rambunctious, percussive and quite noisy, Monteiro generating an astonishing amount of sound variety by rubbing, hitting, blowing into, tearing, bowing and otherwise manipulating multiple varieties of paper. One track, the seventh of an untitled twelve, sounds remarkably like a Joe McPhee tenor solo! The next resembles a West African drum choir. Oddly enough, I doubt I may ever have thought paper was involved were it not for the disc’s title. It’s exciting, surprising and enthusiastic music, though.

His solo accordion disc, “Rumeur”, also confounds expectations somewhat. That is, expectations derived from years of listening to relatively quiet improv. The opening track is quite aggressive, an apian swarm that I daresay few would be able to source as having been generated via accordion. The second cut (all pieces are titled by a series of dots) is substantially more squeeze-boxish and, in fact, sounds like something you might hear from Guy Klucevsek, churning out percussive puffs from the bass register, chugging along in strict mechanical rhythm like a creaky, steam-generated engine. The third’s a rough and tumble, very enjoyable freefall through various bangs and wheezes of the instrument while the fourth enters an area of high, microtonal keening that’s quite abrasive. In a good way. Monteiro closes with a fine selection of accordional detritus, the squishy, crunching tableau summoned from somewhere within the instrument’s bowels. Fine, gritty stuff.

In Cremaster, Monteiro switches to “objects on electric guitar” and is joined by Ferran Fages on “feedback mixing board” and pick-ups, producing, on “Infra”, a wonderful welter of prickly electronics, spiky washes of noise that sandpaper the listener’s ears, leaving them shiny and stinging. One quality that goes a long way can be heard in the quieter sections: there’s always a sense of space around the noise—it never becomes two-dimensional. Often, it seems to be emanating from three or four different points. It’s a little hard to say why some of this music doesn’t come across simply as shrill, random sound—but it doesn’t. There’s a fine, almost breathing sense of naturalness at play that, form the first spray of static or crunch of plastic, convinces the listener of the unforced reality of what he’s hearing. Good work, hard to explain, but the pick of this particular litter for me.

Monteiro’s back to accordion on ‘Cesura’, joined by Ernesto Rodrigues (viola), Guilherme Rodrigues (cello, pocket trumpet) and Margarida Garcia (electric double bass) for yet another grainy, somber set. Again rather difficult to describe except, maybe, as a cascade of textures, irregularly spaced, in fourfold depth, one after another (or four after four others), as varied and alike as people walking by on the street. As with much of the other music here, there’s such a convincing evocation of space surrounding the sounds, that one accepts the proceedings almost in a trompe l’oeil sense. Whatever sound emerges, sounds right. There’s dryness but not aridity, instruments whispering past each other, glancing off, rolling under. Have I mentioned how granular these guys are?

The only new release of this batch is Ruth Barberan’s contribution to the ever-growing mountain of solo trumpet releases, “Capacidad de Perdida”. Of necessity (though I wonder, with this release and others, why?), there’s nothing that would lead the innocent listener to suspect the presence of a trumpet, but true to what seems to me to be one of the guiding aesthetics in this neck of the woods, delicacy is thrown in the back seat and an aggressive, earthy approach is pursued. Granularity, again. Harsh burblings that almost cause you to grip your throat in sympathetic pain, severe knockings and intense, even emotional whistlings are the stuff of this session. If she doesn’t quite have the conceptual fullness of a Kelley or Doerner at their best, Barberan certainly has created her own niche and a very compelling one. Can’t wait to hear more from her.

Everything heard here reinforces my ongoing conviction that some of the finest, most distinctive new music around is being created between Barcelona and Lisbon. Check it out.