French-born, Madrid-based electro-acoustic improviser, sonic alchemist and writer Wade Matthews and Portuguese, Lisbon-based like-minded sonic explorer Abdul Moimême have been performing together regularly in the last decade, sometimes with Butoh dancer Cecilia Gala. They documented one of their collaborations in Lisbon – 10 Sound Portraits (Creative Sources, 2017). Permanence documents their live performance at the BOTA Club in Lisbon in March 2022. Matthews plays digital synthesis and manipulated field recordings and Moimême plays on electric guitar lying horizontally and objects.
.Matthews contemplates the spirit of Permanence in his liner notes: «sometimes an idea comes to you—or maybe you come to it—and you jot it down on paper so thin that some of the ink soaks right through and makes a derived yet different image on the other side. For improvising musicians, that paper is the thinnest (infra-mince?), the most gossamer veil that separates and links (as Marcel Duchamp knew) the always of creating (which is, of course, what we do) from the right now of presence. In other words, contemplating an improvisation is being in that right now when the inky images of constant creating gradually seep through and become visible in the fleeting present, when the always makes its mark on the almost never, the only once of right now».
Permanence offers three immersive pieces where Matthews’ processed and manipulated electronics and field recordings resonate with Moimême’s manipulated electric guitar and objects, sometimes blending into an inseparable and abstract sonic entity and at other times contrasting each other and suggesting unsettling tension. The organic, almost effortless flow of these nuanced, rarely familiar and mostly otherworldly sounds draws the listener into a deep dream state and into the realm of memory, imagined and concrete. The listener’s sense of time becomes elusive and elastic and Matthews asks: «if our side of the veil is the moment, the right now of improvisation, and the other side is its always, its ongoing flow in the unconscious, perhaps time is different on one side and the other. And maybe, just maybe, the relation between those two times is not what it might seem». Matthews and Moimême opt to leave these questions unsolved.
Livro Das Grutas (book of the caves in Portugues) documents a live session of Moimême, playing simultaneously on two guitars lying horizontally, with Brazilian pianist and sound artist Mariana Carvalho, who plays the prepared piano and vocalizes, and Mexican experimental flutist Wilfrido Terrazas at the Namouche Studios in Lisbon in September 2018. This session offers five sound-oriented, unpredictable improvisations where Moimême, Carvalho and Terrazas push the sonic palettes of their instruments into unchartered and risky territories, but within deep listening dynamics. Occasionally, these open and adventurous improvisations gravitate into coherent textures, sometimes, even playful, with childish, game-like interplay (check «Reconhecimento»), and rhythmic segments, but most of the time Moimême, Carvalho and Terrazas experiment with subtle, sonic inventions. The introspective «Ritual» attempts to suggest a delicate, mysterious and irreverent ritual, while «Transformação» flirts with a sensual, folk-like melody and the last, lyrical «Repouso» corresponds with a jazz melody.
Eyal Hareuveni
Wade Matthews (digital synthesis, field rec.), Abdul Moimême (el.g, two el.g (played simultaneously), objects), Wilfrido Terrazas (fl, whistles), Mariana Carvalho (prep.p, v)
