News
September 02, 2008
BRAZILIAN SUSHI WITH A HINT OF COLOMBIA
• tube'|137 - Lezrod - Fear and loathing in Rio/Tokyo
«By the end of Spring I was hired to compose 10 pieces for a series of 10 videos to be displayed in a Brazilian Sushi Restaurant in Las Vegas. Even though the nature of this pieces is abstract, the fact that they have to work with the videos (produced by Daniel Roversi) and that they were going to be performed in a restaurant somehow brought back 'musical' elements which were part of my early work. After I finished them I felt it might be interesting to publish this material that if it wasn't for this project I wouldn't have ever done it.
The videos were based on cultural elements from both Brazil and Japan but I wanted to make something more universal and I feel my love for soundtracks and film music in general, were particularly influential here. The soundtrack projects of people such as Ry Cooder, Quincy Jones, Lalo Schifrin, Herbie Hancock, Vangelis, Edward Artemyev, Vincent Gallo and John Frusciante sure served here as inspiration.
The title of this release pays tribute to film director Terry Gilliam and novelist/journalist Hunter S. Thompson and their movie/book 'Fear and loathing in Las Vegas' where a unique atmosphere of delirium and disregard is built through the entire story, creating confusion between the sometimes-vague line between reality and imagination. This confusing atmosphere were present on the videos, as Daniel Roversi allowed contradictory elements to play together, as the relationship between the video themes and the relation between Japan and Brazil culture required certain level of abstraction to work altogether.
Also by the time I composed some of the pieces for this release I had a at home some of Luis Buñuel movies which I am sure inspired this work as well. This release pays tribute to him and in particular to his movie 'Le Charme discret de la bourgeoisie' where this delirium and disregard atmosphere can be found as well.
This is a soundtrack for a move composed by 10 chapters, 10 stories that the listener could write, direct, shoot and perform, on his own mind.» - Lezrod
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September 01, 2008
D'INCISE IN THE PENINSULA
Swiss artist Laurent Peter a.k.a. d'incise is already here in Portugal for a handful of live improv. electronics shows in collaboration with other local performers.
The shows will be held in several venues including the famous Cabaret Maxime ball room and Cultural Centre 'O Século'. This show will happen this next friday 5th at around 22h. Laurent will play with João Pedro Viegas (bass clarinet and tenor sax), Bruno Parrinha (alto clarinet and alto sax) and João Castro Pinto (laptop). This show is free admission.
The day before - thursday 4th - its the Cabaret Maxime show, with prettu much the same artist lineup: João Pedro Viegas (bass clarinet), Bruno Parrinha (alto and regular clarinet), Miguel Mira (cello), João Camões (viola) and João Parrinha (drums). Acoustics meet laptop electronics in a improv. showdown.
There are one more Lisbon gig but I don't know exactly where (I suspect it might be at Braço de Prata) and next week d'incise travels to Porto for a last gig.
Stay tuned!
Peace,
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August 25, 2008
ICE DRONES
• tube'|136 - .at/on - fon / scape
«.at/on is musician and composer Anton Holota from Ukraine, and after releasing with several well known labels like -N, Plex, Telescope and Nishi (among others) since 2004, .at/on comes to test tube with a special EP containing 4 rarities from his repertoire. The 'fon' pieces were previously released through Cifrarec. Project, a long gone and closed for good netlabel from Russia, so they were both unavailable until now. 'Products of Passed Days' and 'scape-01' on the other hand, were previously released in a very limited CD-r edition of 30 copies and also long gone. This was a great oportunity of re-releasing all four pieces.
.at/on main soundwork is offered through electroacoustic ambient and glitch and drone flavors. 'fon a' and 'fon b' are two small pieces of glitch ambient and experimental noise that together make up one complete story. 'scape-01' and 'Products of Passed Days' are much more on the ambient drone side, lenghtier and more spatious pieces, with a twist of dark ambient throughout.
.at/on has great works and a diverse discography and if you happen to enjoy this EP you should investigate the rest.»
- Pedro Leitão
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August 22, 2008
TWITTERING
Yeah, I surrendered myself to Twitter after getting my own iPhone 3G the other day. The iPhone is not THAT great but nevertheless it shines because of the amount of awesome apps you can fit into it. I use Twitterrific when I'm mobile.
Anyway, I created a test tube Twitter account under my name here. If you use Twitter, follow us and be updated in realtime about new releases, rants and other personal findings. See you on Twitter then!
And stay tuned for a new release this weekend...
Peace,
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August 16, 2008
A JOURNEY'S TALE
• tube'|135 - Ilia Belorukov + Philip Croaton - Un[view]mask[ed]
«Saint Petersburg native Sax player Ilia Belorukov teams up with fellow russian musician Philip Croaton to create a single-piece long player of Improv. Jazzy ambient.
Philip speaks about 'Un[view]mask[ed]' project: «Generally, every composition is a tale. A tale about past, feelings, emotions, etc. And here we have a complete story. I had an idea to create a journey, where some instruments went along with the listener. And the goal was that the listener could see about what happened to composition during this trip. Un[view]mask[ed] – it's a game without masks, witch remains indiscernible.
(Unmasked, but unviewed).»
Philip has been a constant in Ilia's musical work, as producer, musician and sound engineer. This particular work was also graced with the collaboration of trombone player Dmitriy Krotevich.
'Un[view]mask[ed]' is in essence a long, dronesy downtempo-style tapestry of pre-built rhythmic patterns based on bass and ambient loops, that get complemented by several layers of improv. playing of sax, flute, trombone, harmonica and several levels of noise elements and drum loops, culminating in a contemporary electro-acoustic piece of rare beauty. Enjoy the journey.»
- Pedro Leitão
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August 11, 2008
NEUBAU REVIEWED
Here's a review for Neubau's latest work 'Definitions of Nowhere', done by our good friend and supporter Eduardo Chagas (sorry, portuguese readers only):
«Nascido em 1978, na Áustria, Neubau (conhecido nas horas normais de expediente por Arno Steinacher) desenvolve ideias ligadas ao pós-serialismo, que têm a ver com a aplicação de modelos matemáticos à criação musical, numa perspectiva menos laboratorial que aquela em cujo modelo se inspira - Studio für Elektronische Musik, Colónia, Alemanha, anos 50. Neubau procura conciliar este tipo de visão com outra em que é notória uma maior flexibilidade e variedade tímbrica e textural, com um desenho sonoro menos artificial e mais humanizado, que conjuga elementos dos mundos campestre e industrial, temperados de melancolia crepuscular. A ideia do compositor é criar impressões sonoras e visuais no ouvinte à boleia de clusters de sons naturais e fabricados pelo homem (as "mathematical sound rooms", além da presença da voz humana), nascidos de processos idênticos aos que se encontram na análise microscópica, na biologia molecular, nos modelos evolutivos, etc. Serialismo de rosto humano para o Séc. XXI? Pode ser.»
Stay tuned for more news soon...
Peace,
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August 09, 2008
WIND POWERED
• tube'|134 - Tüsüri - Aizeola
«In native basque - Euskara - language, an 'Ola' is a forge or a mill, used in ancient times to melt the ore which was abundant in that northeastern part of Iberia. There were several types of 'Olas', 'Urolas' - your typical water-mill, 'Jentiolas' - related to basque mythology, and 'Aizeolas' which are perhaps the most common of 'Olas', powered by the wind. Yes, wind mills, like the ones Don Quijote fought in his dreams, which were actually giants that the basque people called 'Jentils'.
Anyway, basque mythology aside, this piece that basque artist Oier Iruretagoiena offers us is pretty much made from wind field recordings that Oier captured in the coastal region of Uribe-Kosta, part of the Bizkaia province, hence the title 'Aizeola'.
This piece, while short, has several parts interconnected through moments of tense silence and suspended dramatism. The first moment is the most visceral one as we are left in the middle of a hurricane of unimaginable strenght. We can almost feel the earth shattering beneath this nature's power, rocks being thrown away into space, chaos everywhere we turn to. After that, the calm, and then again. A short but very intense experience.» - Pedro Leitão
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tube'|137
Lezrod
Fear and loathing in Rio/Tokyo
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30'00''
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tube'|138
Mons Jacet
Songs of Night and Longing
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38'09''
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Current Mixed-Media release: |
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tube'|dvd002
v/a
test tube collected works
076 ~ 124
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34h51'38'' |
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