M¨C002CD

QUOTES:

«[...] apart from an obligatory secret track, a dumping ground for spare loops and sonic faffing, the album draws to an end with 'acid beam' a track that reconciles me with this album. a calm wistful piece that gently bounces with dub pace, similar to the pole format, encrusted with a profusion of tiny percussive noises and short break bursts [...]»

«[...] there is talent here; his application of technique is tasteful. hi-fidelity and clean production are affordable these days (compare the muddy cassette quality of mu-ziq in '94) but still this really sparkles. the attention to detail in the percussive and timbral sampling, stereo panning and micro editing are as thorough as an obsessive-compulsive hand washing maniac, and worthy of acclaim. highlights for me are tracks 1, 5 and 7: constrained and reflective without being too introspective and at times evocative of the beauty and poignancy of bola. [...]» - by Will Whitaker | www.absorb.org | read

Album of the issue :: at SWEAR
One man band Rui Gato
Origin: Portugal

«The album making waves deep in our heads lately. Debut consisting of seven tracks of inspired sounds and crisp production by this Lisbon native. Intimate, like a journey into the inner self, I felt good after this one.
Touching places with the extremes of Murcof and Funki Porcini (past stuff) first thought to drop is that this music needs no vocals, better still: leave them alone.
The album really kicks some thrills and chills by arrival of fourth track 'do androids dream of electric sheep?' which is the trully first grand track to feature Mr. Gato's sampling expertise, one word of advice: please turn your bass knob 20 degrees clockwise and prepare for follow up 'strange attractors', in my oppinion, the best cut here.
Over 7 minutes of beautifully balanced structures between neat electronic endeavours (ultra cool and athmospheric bleep engine you have mate!), jazzy touches (mainly due to that persistent, acoustic-sounding ride cymbal throughout the track) and well chosen set of samples. This monster of a track has a sort of diversity in the sounds department that really blowed me away: when the counter reads 3:10 you get a fresh twist rushing in (even tough the bass 'plot' line sticks to the usage of no more than 6/7 different notes) with a gentle fade-in guitar(ish) of a sound that leads the track to the finale with a daze of a music-box type of sound that really produced good vibrations.
Remaining sixth & seventh tracks are again a solid build of diversity and multiformity of sounds making the album flow with a 'what's next' secret question arising at any available angular change, and there's many of them.
Diversity is one aspect to retain with 'elastic void' (even though the whole album is presented in a mix-mode way). The other is the grandiose, atmospheric scope of the whole album: one could add some visuals and the right exciter while listening to most of these songs and certainly end up by feeling better/living in a better world, which isn't that dificult if you look at the current state of affairs but also helps setting your mindframe for what's going on in Gato's world: a strong element of positivity I guess, leaving all possibilities open as for the conclusion you draw upon 69 minutes of intrigging sonic landscapes.
I welcome you to visit its label's site as this is not available in the UK.» - by Jorge

www.swear-head.com

People: Elastic Void debut
words Jorge _ 201202

A new breed of Portuguese sonic talent comes of age

«Elastic Void is Rui Gato. This is the debut album from Lisbon born musician and composer, who also develops electronic music activity in other projects, namely 'Outersites' and 'plat|::|form'.
Rui says about this 8 track effort: "elastic void is the result of passion boiled with music, technology, autodidactism, experimentation and the search of self. It is spontaneous and does not have any aim beyond form and the application of interior paths made with sonic and musical language."
Not a cliche nor a lightly put reasoning of the essence of such music in here... as it happens with autodidacts {the spurious ones} you are often left with so little for improvisation as the rather obvious approach to influence-like soundscapes with deceptive results has to be a trademark for those not originating from any of the US-UK-Japan-Scandinavia combo... I can not bring this close to any I have heard in recent times...; as for experimenting with technology, and I am a purist, should make you look ahead and beyond: boicot retro crap I say! for a debut its fair to say there's enough bagage of knowledge within his (most definitely) limited gear... the production is crisp and the samples are bang!
Allow me to say that if 'Murcof', being a Mexican, made it to the ever-growing coolness of a label like THE LEAF, then I have a strong feeling about this 'non-scandinavian' wonderboy. One can only wait to get more from where this came.»

www.swear-head.com

«Great CD!
I like your CD "elastic void" very much. I will listen too it often :-)» - Robert Henke from monolake

«Who: debut album from Lisbon born musician and composer Rui Gato, who also develops electronic music activity in the projects Outersites and plat|::|form.
Is there life on Mars? «Elastic Void» shows the joyful results of the assimilation and reconfiguration of various sound languages, exposed with urgency and precision along eight pieces that choose to stay a step apart from dance music, thus keeping enough space to play sound games, oriented only by the narrative demands of the tracks.
There is dub for future cities in «Orange» and computerized cosmic jazz in the most part of «Dark Energizer», where a voice defends the conjunction of the words «future» and «hopefully». «Elastic Void» is also that way: optimistic and visionary.» (7/10) - Jorge Manuel Lopes in Blitz [translated by m¨c]