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A ROSE IS A ROSE

released on: doc.test.at  (dOC -007)

buy/shop on Bandcamp: https://vitorjoaquim.bandcamp.com/album/a-rose-is-a-rose

All  texts integrally reproduced




 

> Ed Pinsent
> The Sound Projector,  2005/07/13  (UK)
> http://www.sands-zine.com/recensioni.php?IDrec=257 

 

Ennesimo lavoro per quel pazzo di Vitor Joaquim, eclettico tastierista della scena electroacustica portoghese, forse ben più conosciuto per essere il direttore dell'EME Festival.. questo A Rose is a Rose viene descritto da Vitor come un'aringa affumicata (?! - ehehe!) e già dalla confezione (curata da Lia!) si presenta con un tono alquanto assurdo e sbarazzino.. una sottospecie di confezione cartonata di forma rettangolare a tre pagine, di colore viola (esternamente) e rosa (internamente), rosa è anche il colore del cd, migliaia di cerchi di vari colori e misure in posizioni più o meno casuali adornano l'interno e l'esterno della confezione e anche il cd.. tutto questo, credo, per dimostrare ancor di più quanto questo nuovo lavoro di Vitor Joaquim sia improvvisato, spontaneo e casuale, ma non per questo privo di una forma gradevole e interessante (..e qui parlo sia del contenitore che del contenuto!) ..in queste 8 tracce Vitor ci porta verso territori più disturbanti, in cui frammenti post-industriali convengono nelle apparenti soundscapes (che stranamente assumono un colore rosa!?), disturbi sonori graffiano le dilatate atmosfere digitali e a volte creano dei veri e propri "rumori ritmici" che comunque si dissolvono nell'oscura cappa delle composizioni del portoghese.. interessante nel complesso, ma a mio parere si poteva smussare ancora qualcos'altro evitando alcuni momenti trascurabili e addirittura noiosi.. comunque un bel lavoro..
Stillborn, Aprile 2005
> http://www.stillborn-webzine.tk  (IT)

 


La sortie de cet album de Vitor Joaquim est intéressante à plus d'un titre, dans la mesure où 1. Elle permet de découvrir ou de redécouvrir cet artiste portugais, par ailleurs directeur du festival EME et amateur patenté d'électroacoustique (il fait partie intégrante du projet @CV3, dernier album sur Cronica) ; 2. elle vient compléter la pourtant presque exhaustive compilation portugaise récemment sortie chez Tomlab autour des musiques électroniques (et davantage) portugaises. 3. Enfin, elle offre une nouvelle facette des goûts de PURE, et des intentions qu'il prête à son label (Doc) . A rose is a rose, titre purement arbitraire et une suite d'improvisations diffuses, ré-assemblées par la suite en studio. Des sons intimes, semblant percoler des feuilles automnales d'une forêt sertie de brume, pourrait être une première description. Profondément apaisantes, les atmosphères que dégage ce disque n'en demeurent pas moins étranges. Des paysages désertiques de sites industriels en perdition, la quiétude d'un chemin de fer isolé. Le grain grossier d'un super 8, une silhouette dissimulée par une vitre maculée de gouttes d'eau La beauté sombre qui émane de ce disque tient pour partie à cet audacieux assemblage de Landscapes brumeux, et de petites scories de sons en perdition, lointaines à mesure qu'approche la fin de l'album Il faut s'approprier le temps long de l'écoute, le temps de l'apaisement et de la réflexion pour s'immerger véritablement dans ce disque et espérer entrevoir ses prodigues floraisons, tapies au fond de l'eau.

> Julien Jaffré
> JADE, CHRONIQUES #17  (FR)
http://www.pastis.org/jade/cgi-bin/reframe2.pl?






> Black  (print version) (DE)







> Bad Alchemy  (print version) (DE)






> Gonzo Circus  nr.66  (print version) (BE)
> http://www.gonzocircus.com 






> Nicola Catalano
> Blow Up (print version)  (IT)

(...) Vitor Joaquim, chiunque abbia familiarità col giro della Crónica lo conoscerà sicuramente. Il portoghese è dedito a una ricerca elettronica che in questo “A rose is a rose” sconfina con l’industrial. Il disco è molto bello ed è lavorato con cura certosina; Victor Joachim sembra un pittore che con la sua tavolozza crea soundscapes ambientali dai vari toni e accenti. Bip elettronici creano rumori d’ambiente e più corposi beat incalzanti vengono fuori dal nulla. Il portoghese riesce benissimo a produrre e rendere in musica, come un alchimista, gli elementi, dell’acqua, del vento e della natura in generale. Nella parte finale del disco emergono anche indovinati riferimenti all’industrial cupo e inquietante di Throbbing Gristle e Coil (approposito: John Balance r.i.p.). Una musica che al di là dei vari riferimenti più o meno identificabili, della sua ripetitività e circolarità, risulta alla fine essere uguale a se stessa al pari della rosa della Stein a cui il titolo sembrerebbe far riferimento.
(...) ottimi (...)
> Alfredo Rastelli
> Sands Zine,   2004-11-29  (IT)
> http://www.sands-zine.com/recensioni.php?IDrec=257 





Att fånga ett intresse med strikt dronebaserad musik är inte lätt. Mikroskopiskt fin, monoton ambient av detta slag är ett svårnyanserat koncept som i bästa fall (tänk Zoviet France eller under senare år Philip Jeck) dock kan förmedla intensiv skönhet.

Den portugisiske Joaquim har vissa fördelar gentemot andra artister på samma svårförnyade elektroakustiska fält - hans olika lager av ljud behåller i den ambienta röran alltid viss distinktion och vågar stå för sig själv. På så vis inbjuds lyssnare till att inte bara ta del av utan också hänga med i vad som faktiskt konstituerar musikens atmosfär.

På det sjätte spåret hettar det dock till en aning och mot slutet av skivan blir det nästan lite dramatiskt. Men även om jag uppskattar hur det på 'A Rose is a Rose' både finns oblyga och intressanta strukturer och mer direkta atmosfärer så känns skivan alltsomoftast inte riktigt mödan värd.
> Författare: Klas Molde 
> METICA,  2004-11-24  (SE)
> http://www.metica.se/reviews/review_result.php?r_id=1016
 

> Musiques et Cultures Digitales (print version) (FR)





"Le titre du nouveau projet de Victor Joaquim est arbitraire. Comme une rose, il contient un monde en soi, un univers qui se dévoile au fur et à mesure. Constitué d’improvisations réassemblées en studio, c’est une collection d’espaces intimes, de sonorités organiques, que l’on traverse comme dans un voyage au cœur de la mémoire, une longue marche dans l’interzone de nos souvenirs faite de plénitude et de surprises. Musicien, professeur et directeur du festival EME, Victor Joaquim travaille l’audio et la vidéo, développant de larges étendues sonores fragiles où l'accident intervient à tout moment."
> Paul Benjamin
> Octopus 11/ 04  (FR)






> phosphor 11/ 04 (DE)
http://www.xs4all.nl/%7Ephosphor/newreleases.html 




"A Rose Is a Rose" is a red herring: Vitor Joaquim tells us that the title of his new solo CD is arbitrary. Like a rose, however, this CD is a small self-contained (pink!) object that carries a world within itself, one which opens up on closer scrutiny. It is the 9th release on d0c (in spite of its cat. nr. 7), the forward-looking label run by Pure, and offers eight separate but closely related tracks that seem to happen spontaneously, compositions which are snapshots of a scene already taking place by the time we get there.
According to Joaquim, a key player on Portugal's electroacoustic scene and director of the annual EME festival there, the music on this CD was mostly improvised and then assembled in the studio into an organic whole. One of its many charms is its overall intimate sound, as though the composer were allowing the listener a confidential glimpse into a personal incident or journey or memory. Generally quiet but not disquieting, dusky rather than dark, the music is like a lone walk in a vast abandoned industrial zone, by the railroad flats, or a grainy black-and-white film of that walk. ItÇs like sitting in twilight by a concrete jetty, marveling at the ultrasonic radio waves bouncing off the ionosphere overhead. ItÇs like enjoying the shimmering, lulling surface of the water while sounds pierce through the digital mist: the far-off rush of windy open spaces(track 3), scrambled radio transmissions (track 4), the throb of machinery in the distance while, deep in the mix, a low chorus of male voices confer with each other (track 6).
The haunting beauty of track 5's harmonic background and placid, aquatic foreground; the protracted epiphany of track 7, with the
surging and dropping off of its digital pizzicato and moments of quiet suspense; the coda of track 8, summarizing the foregoing even as it looks to the beyond - all these are characterized by a deep glow that holds back, enchanting the listener as it does so.
The artist himself will have none of this, of course: regardless of the highly evocative quality of the soundscapes here, he says that it is all "open to speculation, but in the end all we get are stories built on top of stories" and that one should concentrate only on the sound itself. So do that, and create your own stories to it.
> soulseduction 11/04

"Desta vez sem convidados, o português Vítor Joaquim oferece-nos nesta sua terceira incursão pelo disco mais uma perspectiva sobre o seu mundo sonoro, um mundo pleno de referências (rock, “ambient”, techno, electroacústica, improvisação) mas que transcende todas elas, individualmente consideradas ou tomadas no conjunto das suas possíveis combinatórias. E talvez porque, neste registo proveniente da etiqueta dirigida pelo músico digital austríaco Pure, nenhum instrumento acústico entra em cena, mais específico é o território que vai construindo por meio de parasitagens electrónicas que têm como fonte a voz humana, em muitos casos retirada de emissões televisivas. Com uma gestão dos ocasionais “beats” muito próxima da frente “click ‘n’ cut” e uma abordagem que poderíamos identificar simultaneamente com o “noise”, facção Mego, e o industrial, vertente Throbbing Gristle, não fossem estas alusões muito indirectas, «A Rose is a Rose is a Rose» é um álbum problematizador e intenso que, apesar do esquematismo de todos os procedimentos (podemos mesmo dizer que os alicerces estão à mostra), vai em contra-corrente com a moda “lowercase” da electrónica que se faz nos nossos dias, em busca de um mito da pureza que está sempre além de quaisquer conseguimentos. O inconformismo, como se sabe, é a via para a pertinência de uma proposta artística e esta plenamente se justifica, sob o signo do “sujo”, do “excessivo” e do “impróprio” das vozes em delírio, loucas, absurdas, patéticas porventura, que irrompem por entre as escarpas frias da numerologia informática. Para ouvir durante a leitura de «Humano, Demasiado Humano» de Nietzsche..."
> Rui Eduardo Paes
>JL - Jornal de Letras, Artes e Ideias - 10/04  (PT)
> Rep.no.sapo





> De:bug (print version) (DE)





Das Österreichische Label dOc, geführt von den Experimentalelektronikern Pure, wartet mit einem neuen Glanzstück auf: Verpackt in einer lilafarbenen Klapphülle aus Pappe offenbart sich auf dieser CD tatsächlich (so will es die Presseinformation) ein 'hermetisch Welt', aus der uns schwer definierbare Collagen, eigenwillige Sounds und Rhythmus-Strukturen entgegenströmen. Der Portugiesische Musiker Joaquim ist Direktor des jährlichen EME Festivals und bietet hier improvisierte Elemente, die nachträglich im Studio verarbeitet wurden. Dabei wirkt diese Mischung aus Stimmfetzen, hochfrequenten Noisescheifen, geheimnisvollem Dröhnen usw. fast wie die Direktübertragung aus einem fremden Gehirn (man denke auch an entsprechende Momente aus David Cronenbergs Film SCANNERS, die erstaunlich ähnlich gestaltet sind). Ein kleines Meisterwerk düster-rätselhafter Ambientmusik fernab der kalten Beliebigkeit vielen Click'n'Cut-Spielereien. :ms:

(translation by Peter Votava)
The austrian label doc, lead by the experimental musician pure provide a new sparkler: packaged in a pink hard paper cover the cd indeed opens (according to the press release) a "hermetic world", from which hard to define montages, headstrong sounds and rhythm structures are coming towards us. The port musician Joaquim is director of the annual EME festival and provides here improvised elements which were reworked in the studio then. This mix of distant voices, high frequency noise loops, arcane drones almost seems like a live broadcast from a strange brain (think on the respective moments from David Cronenberg "Scanner"  that are built similarly).  A small masterpiece of dark-enigmatic ambient music far from many of the cold clicks cuts gimmicks.
> ms
> Ikonen Magazine, September 2004  (DE)
> http://www.ikonenmagazin.de/rezension/ExperimentalSept2004.htm
> Bad Alchemy  (print version) (DE)






Although I never heard of Vitor Joaquim he seems to be a key-player in the electro-acoustic music circles in Portugal and the director of the annual EME festival. For the music on this CD he improvised a bunch of stuff and them later assembled it in the studio. What it is he improvises with, I am not sure, the cover notes 'includes sound bits from random tv sounds'. Something else, maybe? Nothing else, maybe? I played this CD a couple of times and although some pieces are quite alright, such as the ambient influenced field recordings of the third track (none of these have titles) or the radio sounds in the fourth (was there a radio transmission on the TV, we wonder?). But there is also some tedious moments in there, such as the processed spoken word opening of the final track - which luckily gets better towards the end of the track. I have some mixed feelings about this disc. The majority of nicer tracks outnumber the lesser ones, but as a whole I don't think it's something that stands out as a masterpiece to last for years to come. For now it's pretty much ok.
>FdW
>vital weekly 441 (NL)