I am not sure if I ever heard of Sergio Merce, who teams up with Lucio Capece. Capece plays scruti box and filter on the first track and bass clarinet on the second. Merce plays 'four tracks portastudio without tape on the first and tenor saxophone on the second. I must admit I thought it was quite fascinating to think of an empty recording device as an instrument. What does it then? Perhaps the built in mixing board is used? According to the supplied information, there is also talk of using small metal objects against the tape heads. The two work together since 1993 when they were both living in Argentina. Earlier this year, Capece, currently in Berlin I think, went back to his own country, stayed at his parents house and recorded this work, at the time of which Merce's house was renovated - old and new houses - hence the title 'Casa'. 'Virar, Virar' is the opening piece here, and lasts almost thirty minutes. Its a most beautiful piece of drone music. The sruti box provides a continuos background in which utterly small sounds play small but important roles. There are subtle changes in the music that one wouldn't hardly notice if you wouldn't listen very carefully. Yet I thought this piece could be listened to in various ways: as a relaxing background piece, unconsciousness of the minor changes, or highly concentrated. The second piece, 'Vieja Casa Nueva' is quite different: here the two play instruments in slow motion. They play slow curves with silence in between them. An even more softer piece than the first one but perhaps also more intense. Two great pieces of music and a highly refined release. (Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly)
Over the last few years, Capece has become one of the musicians I most look forward to hearing, largely because of the fact that he seems to approach each project with several specific, wide-ranging and imaginative ideas. There’s always something going on in addition to two or more people simply sitting down and playing, as rewarding as that may be. Lucio was kind enough to recently send me four DVDs of performances in which he was involved over the last year and, while he’d prefer they not be “reviewed”, I’ll just say that each was extremely impressive in a different way and strongly whetted my appetite to hear/see more.
On ‘Casa’, he’s joined by fellow Argentinean Sergio Merce (a new name to me) for two forceful though serene pieces. On the first and longest, “Virar, virar”, Capece plays the sruti box (augmented with an electronic filter), a kind of portable squeezebox which I imagine is capable of a couple of octaves but which he lets abide in a fairly constant drone for the first half of the 30-minute work, what changes occur doing so via the filter. Merce manipulates a “four track portastudio without tape”, sounds generated via direct interaction with the instrument’s surface and use of its equalizers. The reedy sound of the sruti, wonderful in and of itself, acts as an absorbent cushion for all the prickly, clattering and whirring noises created by Merce. Midway through, they very slightly shift gears, Capece, while maintaining the drone, allowing it to mutate and phase in a more agitated manner, Merce at the same time apparently coaxing smoother sounds from his portastudio, resulting in the piece wandering into territory that, had he maintained his genius, Terry Riley might be investigating today. Beautiful work.
The remaining cut is a 7 ½ minute duet for bass clarinet (Capece) and tenor saxophone (Merce). Its structure (it seems to have been “composed”) is simple but very effective: Synchronous held tones, always softly played but not quite edging into full breathiness, held for 15-20 seconds with three or four seconds of silence between. The result has a certain loose regularity of pulse, but each “pool” is varied so one has the sense of experiencing natural phenomena, like a series of strata in limestone. Recalled Roscoe Mitchell’s wonderful “Tnoona” at points. Very moving in its concision and its poetic overtones.
Excellent recording, hear it! (Brian Olewnick, Just Outside)
Ξεκινώντας να ακούω το “Casa”, τη συνεργασία του με τον Sergio Merce, δεν ήξερα πολλά γι’ αυτούς τους δύο. Ψάχνοντας λίγο, ανακάλυψα δύο πολυπράγμονες μουσικούς με πολλές και ενδιαφέρουσες συνεργασίες στο χώρο του ηλεκτρακουστικού πειραματισμού,εκεί που ανήκει και το “Casa ” δηλαδή. Το άλμπουμ αυτό, όπως δηλώνει και ο τίτλος του, αναφέρεται, και ηχογραφήθηκε εκεί, στο σπίτι του Merce. Η ζεστασιά που αποπνέει το σπίτι, ο προσωπικός χώρος κάθε ανθρώπου και ότι συμπαρασύρει αυτή η έννοια, αποτελεί το συναίσθημα που διατρέχει και τα 37 λεπτά του. Η σχέση με κάθε τι συνηθισμένο σταματάει στη «συνηθισμένη» κεντρική ιδέα του άλμπουμ. Από εκεί και πέρα οι δύο τους κάνουν ότι μπορούν για να ξεφύγουν από τα καθιερωμένα, και σαν άξιοι εκπρόσωποι του χώρου που ανέφερα πιο πάνω, μας παραδίδουν ένα έργο γεμάτο έμπνευση και με πολύ πλούσιο ήχο.
Βασικό στοιχείο του cd, το Sruti του Capece, ένα παραλλαγμένο, πιο απλό, ακορντεόν που παράγει, όμως, ένα πιο συμπαγή ήχο. Στο πρώτο κομμάτι του cd το “ Virar Virar ” το drone από το Sruti Box δίνει, αποτελώντας τον πυρήνα του, μια άλλη ποιότητα στο τραγούδι από το να πατάς ένα κουμπί στο συνθεσάιζερ. Τα πράγματα είναι απλά άλλωστε: το μόνο που αρκεί είναι να βάζεις συναίσθημα, πάθος και την επιθυμία σου να δώσεις κάτι διαφορετικό. Και σίγουρα το “ Casa ” διαθέτει περίσσευμα σε όλα αυτά. Στα 29 λεπτά του “ Virar, Virar ” οι συναισθηματικές κορυφώσεις είναι πολλές γεγονός ασυνήθιστο μια και, στα αυτιά του μη μουσικά εκπαιδευμένου-βλέπε τον γράφοντα-το κομμάτι μπαίνει σε ambient μονοπάτια. Και τα δύο κομμάτια είναι συνθέσεις υψηλού επιπέδου και μεγάλης ευρηματικότητας. Δοκίμασε να ακούσεις το δεύτερο “Vieja Casa Nueva ” και αν καταλάβεις ότι ακούς σαξόφωνο και κλαρινέτο έλα να μου το πεις…Μάλιστα, αυτή η ευρηματικότητα μου θύμισε τον σπουδαίο Matthew Burtner χωρίς, όμως, τον ακαδημαϊσμό!
Στη, μουσική, ελληνική πραγματικότητα όπου πολλά ακόμα απορρίπτονται με τη ρετσινιά του «αυτό δεν είναι μουσική» είναι μεγάλη μαγκιά αυτό το cd να κυκλοφορήσει από ελληνική εταιρία, στα χνάρια των μικρών ξένων που κάνουν όλη τη δουλειά στη σύγχρονη μουσική. Άκουσε αυτό το άλμπουμ, ένα από τα καλύτερα του 2008, χωρίς προκατάληψη και δεν θα χάσεις. (Φώτης Νικολακόπουλος, tranzistor)
At times, one needs to let go of preconceived notions that music traps us in. We have to absolve ourselves of the past to move forward with what the present has on offer. Why should one look back and nod one's head in appreciation or fan worship when better and brighter things are on the horizon. Multi-instrumentalist, sound-wizard Lucio Capece has been on my radar for a while. This Argentinean musician's duo album with Axel Dorner [released on L´Innomable] made it clear he's a force to be recokned with. This time around Capece chose the sruti box [hand pumped, wooden box] as his main musical aid. Its rich drone gives off a warm glow, which is only matched by Merce's four-track portastudio set up, that allows occassional static to escape. Interesting to note is the fact that Merce's machine is used without tape. Apparently, he used a variety of objects to strike sides of the device to produce the desired effect. The bulk of the 30 minute "Virar, Virar" piece is the duo going head-to-head with their chosen instruments. While Capece overwhelms the piece with his ominous drone that slightly changes in form and pitch, Merce's additions are much more subtle as the high-pitches oscillate well below the listener's perceptive range. Concoction of these two disaparete elements is certainly an ear-opening experience, though mid-way through the piece I did wish Merce would be more forthcoming with his contribution - that the sound would be somehow drastically altered. What I was hoping for I suppose is for the piece to self-implode. As it stands, it's simply captivating. For the second piece, Capece picks up bass clarinet, while Merce takes on the tenor sax. "Vieja Casa Nueva" is as full of drones as the previous piece. The duo here explores rich textural possibilities of their instruments. With subtle, drawn-out sounds escaping [and oftentimes alternating between the two], one gets a sense they were trying to space out these sounds for all eternity. In fact, space and silence play a significant role in the piece as the two play along a stop-and-go trajectory. Haunting and absolutely thrilling in every sense of the word, "Casa" is music that stays with you long after the music has turned to silence. (Tom Sekowski, Gaz-Eta)
Recorded in Sergio Merce's casa in Merlo, Argentina, in February this year, this latest offering from Kostis Kilymis 's OMT imprint consists of two tracks: "Vivar, vivar", on which Merce plays a four-track portastudio without tape and Lucio Capece a Sruti box (handheld miniature harmonium) and filter, and "Vieja Casa Nueva", which features Capece on bass clarinet and Merce on tenor sax. "Vivar, vivar" is a curiously enthralling 29 minute piece, with Capece's dry drones deliberately forward in the mix as if to place Merce's squeaks, squelches, gurgles and flutters tantalisingly out of reach, like a shortwave station you never quite manage to tune in. The ear is drawn into the acoustic background, but in trying to concentrate on what Merce is up to it also discovers a wealth of detail in Capece's seemingly static dyads and trichords: phantom melodies, rich overtones and complex interlocking pulses. The all too brief "Vieja Casa Nueva" intersperses long pianissimo tones with silence; there's no flashy circular breathing on display here – each tone lasts the length of a breath – but both musicians reveal some impressive multiphonic technique, often giving the illusion there are at least two other reed players hiding out in Merce's house. It's a shame they couldn't have kept it up longer than seven and a half minutes; four times as long and it would have made a splendid counterbalance for the first track. As it is, it comes across as something of an afterthought, albeit a very pleasant one. (Dan Warburton, Paris Transatlantic)
Die beiden Argentinier kennen sich seit 1993, als sie in einem Saxophonquartett noch Alte und Barockmusik spielten. Inzwischen frönen sie beide der Mikroelektronik. So war Capece, der seit 2004 in Berlin lebt, mit R. Davies, R. Hayward & J. Eckhardt und an der Seite von T. Nakamura (auf Creative Sources) zu hören oder auch mit SLW. Schöner als Kammerlärm (2007), Titel seiner Begegnung mit A. Dörner & R. Hayward, kann man diese Klangwelt nicht taufen. Bei einem Besuch in seiner alten Heimat entstanden zwei intime Improvisationen mit Merce in dessen Zuhause. Der spielt zuerst einen 4-Spur-Portastudio-Recorder, ohne Bänder, während Capece Sruti Box & Filter einsetzt. Sein sonorer, leicht gewellter Drone wird gemustert mit nadelspitzen Ritzungen und kleinen Schleifgeräuschen. Der anhaltende ‚Harmonium‘-Ton, der nach 9 Min. kurz aussetzt und dann, mehrfach nun leicht changierend, fortfährt, wirkt trotz der Mikrostörungen rammdösig. Erst in einem harmonisch bewegteren, unruhig wummernden dritten Teil wird diese halbe Stunde... nein, nicht wirklich. In einem viel kürzeren zweiten Anlauf griff der Wahlberliner zur Bassklarinette und Merce zum Tenorsaxophon. Das Wechselspiel von teils glatten, teils tremolierenden, bedächtigen, fast andächtigen Haltetönen ist etwas für die Lauschen-mit-geschlossenen-Augen-Fraktion. (Rigo Dittmann, Bad Alchemy)
For the 150 people worldwide that still care about electroacoustic improvisation (EAI), Argentinian saxophonist Lucio Capece is a name to watch. He's recorded duos with Toshimaru Nakamura, Axel Dorner and Mattin, plays in the SLW quartet, and has several releases on the way, in collaborations with various genre names.
Casa pairs him with compatriot Sergio Merce. 29 minutes of "Virar, Virar" is more outright drone music than EAI, electronic squiggles squirted over thick undulations which sound like organs but are in fact generated from a sruti box. Which isn't to imply that EAI is generally becoming dronier, because it is. The second, a shorter duo for bass clarinet and tenor sax, utilises predictably slow-moving, sustained sounds. In case you'd not noticed, the label's name is a pun on Improvised Music of Japan. Rimshot. (Nick Cain, The Wire)
Το Σπίτι: πρόσκαιρη επιστροφή για τον Αργεντινό Capece, προσωρινά διαρραγέν έρμα για τον Ιταλό Merce. Στην τέχνη, η παρέκκλιση του χθες είναι η βάση του σήμερα... Συνηχώντας απ' το '02 έπειτα από θητεία στο μπαρόκ, τον αυτοσχεδιασμό και τη σύγχρονη σύνθεση, διαχέουν στο ευρωτοπίο ανοιχτές μετατροπικές υφάνσεις όπου πνευστά και ηλεκτρονικά ανταλλάσσουν συνειρμούς κι ενδοματιές μάλλον παρά ευθύγραμμους θεματικούς ιστούς. (Αργύρης Ζήλος, Αθηνόραμα)
Argentine by birth, but a resident of Berlin since 2004, sound designer Lucio Capece has carved out a distinctive voice in his collaborations with key players in the international electro-acoustic improv scene. Formed Records’ recent SLW, with Burkhard Beins, Rhodri Davies and Onkyo feedback king, Toshimaru Nakamura, is the latest documented meeting.
Here he teams up with long term collaborator Sergio Merce for a home recording that belies a warm sonic rapport that has been established since 1993. Both moved from playing in a saxophone quartet that documented early baroque numbers, to efforts as a touring electro-acoustic duo throughout Europe, dazzling those in attendance with their extended takes on woodwind and the simple manipulations of a tapeless portastudio.
When listening to Casa, one is given the impression of an impending house invasion of digital strangers. The first track derives its title ominously from the Spanish Verb, Virar – to veer, or to swerve away. Merce’s electronic embrasures set the anxious tone, acting as a jittery counterpoint to the gentle hum of Lucio’s sruti box, drawing the listener into the same casual lull of security that all homes afford – insular comfort, which threatens to slowly swerve into a psycho-geographic chaos of the unfamiliarity of the outside.
Indeed, one can find a narrative source for this 29-minute piece in a short story by fellow Argentine, Julio Cortazar, whose paranoiac “House Taken Over” presents us with a brother and sister whose familial world goes through a process of inversion, as random trespassers ensconce themselves in their home. By the piece’s end, they too will leave this house, cutting their interspatial ties.
Capece and Merce render this emotional shift with subtlety and success in a long-form drone piece that unfolds a gradual state of unease and yearning, which brings to mind Kevin Drumm’s forays into drone dynamics in his recent project, Imperial distortion.
The second piece — with its deceptively femininized title, “Vieja Casa Nueva,” (Mother’s new house*) — repeats this same subversive feat, but this time employing high tonal registers alternating between saxophone and woodwind. The mood is circular and sustained, strongly suggesting that all houses are a repository of stored loops of human experience with each passing layer of a new pitch or microtone indicating the arrival of a new occupant in perpetuity.
Overall, “Casa” proves that electronic improv can provide the listener with a Magic realist gambit all of its own, without resorting to words, but in a subconscious experience of nostalgia for lost places and the resettling of new ones. (Paul Baran, bagatellen)
*the title is actually translated as "old new house" (ed.)
“Casa” è un lavoro semplice e sobrio, che intelligentemente non va per le lunghe. I suoi due autori, Lucio Capece e Sergio Merce, sono entrambi argentini e si spostano senza problemi da visioni radical-impro (in specie Merce, nato primariamente quale sassofonista new-jazz abbagliato dalla spiritualità di Trane) ad esperienze contemporanee in cui è nevralgica l’azione del droning. Due soli pezzi seriali suggeriti tout cour da vicende personali ancora vive e vivide nell’esistenza dei protagonisti. In ambedue le storie la casa entra di preponderanza nel leit motiv di queste costruzioni, esponendosi come spazio simbolico ma pure schiettamente fisico. Virar, Virar, nella sua immortale mezz’ora, rievoca in note il vicino rientro alla madre patria di Capece che si lascia alle spalle un intenso break europeo. La domus viene tratteggiata dalla terra d’origine ed un lungo drone, distillato dallo shruti box di Lucio, sorge come il mezzo più indicato per alimentare l’immaginario con un’indistinta (e inspiegabile) saudade che ha condotto le emozioni del nostro nel viaggio di ritorno. Le tonalità dello shruti, paragonate, ricordano velatamente quelle di una fisarmonica cinta dalla perpetua leggerezza di Pauline Oliveros. L’evoluzione di questa corrente è costante nella forma ma non è difficile individuare tre variazioni tonali nell’armonia portante. Merce, in tale frangente, diciamo che lancia messaggi manipolatori dal sottosuolo con una vasta scala di frequenze elettroniche vitree cagionate dal famoso portastudio autobrevettato a quattro tracce sprovvisto dei nastri.
Questa ricchezza di volume e romanticismo ci abbandona con l’ingresso evanescente di Vieja Casa Nuova, struttura dall’innesto suono-silenzio propriamente feldamaniana. Pura ed esperta austerità acustica per un laconico e greve intarsio lavorato dai timbri diafani di clarinetto basso e sax tenore. Suoni e soffi ‘acquarellosi’ che gli amanti del genere avranno sicuramente colto nel bellissimo duo tra Kai Fagaschinski e Michael Thieke, “The International Nothing”, con l’unica differenza che lì a suonare ombrosi erano due clarinetti.
Rimane comunque leggermente macchinoso accostare concettualmente la frugale asciuttezza dei toni proposta con la colorata parentesi del rimodernamento casalingo di Merce, ma forse anche qui si vuole palesare quella strana nostalgia che la riapparizione e la sparizione del passato origina nelle coscienze, anche tramite episodi a prima vista ininfluenti. (Sergio Eletto, sands-zine)
Nova saída do argentino residente em Berlim, Lucio Capece, especialista da electroacústica improvisada moderna, agora em duo com o conterrâneo Sergio Mece. Casa, gravado na Argentina em Fevereiro deste ano, documenta a preparação que o duo elaborou com vista a dar a conhecer o estado da arte da sua interacção, oportunamente retomada, como a preparar os potenciais ouvintes para o que de mais parecido se poderá escutar em apresentações perante audiências devotadas à fruição destes sons subversivos e inquietantes. Como é o caso em Virar, Virar, onde são empregues coisas como 'sruti box' e filtros electrónicos, ferramentas que ajudam a modelar a serpente sonora, e 'portastudio without tape'. Ou clarinete baixo e saxofone tenor, em Vieja Nueva Casa, composição esta que apresenta os mais interessantes e imaginativos contrates com a sessão anterior. Do cotejo entre ambas resulta a certeza de que há sempre ideias novas em circulação. (jazz e arredores)
