‘Electrostatic soundscapes superimposed with the evocative qualities of operatic singing’ reads the release sheet, and it’s a fairly accurate assessment, but don’t let the fat lady reference scare you away. Vocals are used sparingly, and in a glitchy contemporary way, like the gasps and gurgles of AGF with more range and tonal accuracy. The soundscapes come from an ensemble of musicians assembled from Saldanha’s base in Porto, weaved into dizzying tapestries of frenzied blips and bursts.
Restraint is not Saldanha’s strong suit, nor clearly his agenda, his crazed outbursts spitting elements like discarded seed husks. Opener ‘Ornithos Haruspex’ finds him at his most extreme, waves of crashing cymbals, bass rumbles, prog synth stabs, train chuff, all buried amid reversed tape warbles and digital laptop jitter. The uncredited female vocals only show up on a few tracks, and lend a welcome human presence to the mechanised juxtaposition. On ‘Rumor is Listening (In Verto)’ whispered sprechstimme gasps echo and layer like musical phrases, while in ‘The Fall of Lintukoto (Autophagia)’ it’s stretched into drone, and laid over glassy chimes and birdsong. The sun-kissed Exotica closer, ‘The Concealer (Calypso)’, is utterly incongruous – steel pan rhythms, conch shells and reverbed tropical ambiance – but is so well done it deserves a place on John Zorn’s homage to Martin Denny The Gift. Worth checking for this tune alone.
Joshua Meggitt
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