Release Notes
- Percussion: Pilar Subira
- Recordings: Alfredo Costa Monteiro
Listen a fragment of Aura
EtudeRecords
ABOUT AURA
This piece is composed by a series of recorded sounds, all produced by percussion instruments, played by . Each recording has been edited, cutting the attack, at the point where the impact disappears and the harmonics start, keeping only the natural resonance and decay of the sound.
All the sounds are acoustic without electronics or processing.
Some sounds result from acoustic combinations of other sounds.
When I started to record on percussion, I had no idea of how the whole piece would sound. Once with the recordings, and after having cut the impact, I had in hands a huge quantity of different sounds and timbres, and the first problem I was confronted to was election. How many possible combinations would result from more than two hundred recordings? In front of the abysmal probabilities, I let myself to be guided by the intrinsic characteristic of the sounds and took the decision to work by timbrical families and by a kind of sonic alliterations. It also appeared to me that working this way, I could build a piece with significant atmospheres and a more focussed presence. And while I was working on this process, the piece started to achieve a spectral form, due to the lack of impact, floating slowly in the room. A phantomatic essence, made of almost unrecognizable sources, that focalizes on what we could call the second presence of a percussion instrument: its “re-sonance” and reverberation.
Finally, my intention slowly became clear: I went on trying to give this second presence an autonomous sonic body.
A nocturnal listening is recommended.
- Barcelona (Juny 2010)
REVIEWS
Enregistrée en novembre 2008 et finalisée entre 2009 et 2010, cette pièce d' joue sur des sons de percussions où l'attaque a été effacée pour ne garder que les résonances. Et ensuite essayer de composer avec cette absence. C'est d'une part l'expérience de la cloche coupée de et d'autre part une réflexion sur les écrits de Walter Benjamin. 'Un déplacement de l'ici et maintenant de l'œuvre à un ici et après, comme un effet dont la cause aurait disparu... ce qui est aussi une métaphore de l'enregistrement, un produit sans aura, mais je crois avec une toute nouvelle force, celle de pouvoir redonner à l'écoute un nouveau contexte, à chaque fois différent...' (A. Costa Monteiro). Fantômatique, nocturne et tout simplement excellent.
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The credit for the composition (and thus on the cover) goes out to , but the instrument, percussion in this case, was played by . On the cover we read: "Each recording has been edited, cutting the attack, at the point where the impact disappears and the harmonics start, keeping only the natural resonance and decay of the sound." From two hundred recordings these 'beyond attacks' were saved and selected and then slowly build into this one piece of music. It has nothing or at least very little, I guess, to do with percussion music. Only in the final part of the work, say the last ten minutes, one could say that this is a percussive work and rather sounds like a gentle piece of carefully processed sinewaves, except that these are not sine waves nor it is processed in anyway. The acoustic sounds glide in a natural way and over the course of fifty minutes build up in quite a dramatic way, moving from one area to another, constantly changing color and direction. A minimal work but also one of great beauty and perhaps not that minimal, with all the microscopic, detailed changes. An excellent work which can be relaxing or demanding - you can choose your own approach.
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