Margarida Garcia is a Portuguese, Lisbon and Antwerp-based experimental bassist (and visual artist) who has developed a language for her electric double bass built on restraint, tension, and expressive use of tone and silence. Fellow Portuguese, Lisbon-based experimental guitarist Manuel Mota has been her most frequent musical partner for the last three decades. Both Garcia and Mota have collaborated with like-minded innovative improvisers like Thurston Moore, Loren Connors, and Noël Akchoté. They have developed a singular genre-defying language on the edges of sound and form, born from the absolute necessity of the moment.
Garcia and Mota’s The Figure in the Carpet references the title of Henry James’ short story (1896), which is told in the first person. The narrator, whose name is never revealed, meets his favourite author and becomes obsessed with discovering the secret meaning or intention of all the author’s works. Likewise, the 31-minute piece is a mysterious, rich yet minimalist drone, close in spirit to the hypnotic metal textures of Sunn O))), that refuses to conform to any gesture, theme, or structure. Its walls of noisy sound act simultaneously as ruin and ornament. The subtle variations of timbres offer an elusive sensibility of time and space, as if inhabiting—literally—that time and space, slowly morphing into a frozen, fragile, almost weightless, yet highly resonant architecture of sounds.
1-7 is a collection of seven untitled solo pieces for electric guitar, using the instrument as a sound generator that colours hazy, restless cinematic textures visiting stubborn industrial and noisy terrains, deep space, sci-fi atmospheres, and melancholic memories. At times, Mota’s electric guitar corresponds with the introspective, electroacoustic storms of Fennesz. NTL is another collection of seven untitled solo electric guitar pieces, recorded in 2023 and 2024, but these pieces thoughtfully shape the electric guitar’s sonic palette into refined and captivating, lyrical and vulnerable sonic images. Both albums were recorded in 2013, and Garcia designed both covers.
Eyal Hareuveni
Margarida Garcia (electric double bass), Manuel Mota (electric guitar)
