João Castro Pinto - ARS ABSCONDITA mp3 download

Kage

Was considered 2013 TOP 10 Field Recordings / Soundscape album by A Closer Listen @ https://acloserlisten.com/2013/12/21/acl-2013-top-ten-field-recording-soundscape/

Snowskin

João Castro Pinto ~ Ars AbsconditaA Closer Listen by Richard Allen @ https://acloserlisten.com/2013/08/20/joao-castro-pinto-ars-abscondita/Portuguese sound artist João Castro Pinto is said to “compose silence with sounds”, and this description is perfect for Ars Abscondita. The combination of field recording and sound sculpture allows artists to fill spaces with the most interesting sounds they can find, or to leave them empty for contrast. While this seems as if it might be easy, it’s not. On the one hand, such artists are freed from the constraints of common song composition (verse-chorus-verse-chorus-bridge-chorus-chorus). On the other, they are expected to present a comprehensive framework for their art. Listeners need to hear intention and drive; otherwise, their attention will be lost. Pinto’s strength is that he seems to know exactly where each piece is headed and how to get there. While there’s no predicting what sounds will appear and where they will turn, nothing on Ars Abscondita seems random. The music reflects the title, which roughly translated means “hidden art”, or as Pinto puts it, “meta-soundscapes with secluded meaning”. In daily life, our minds attempt to make sense of auditory inputs, but in sound art, the guideposts are absent. The narratives we discern may not be the narratives that are intended or even available. And yet, interpretation becomes a public province once any artistic work is shared.The sounds presented on these four tracks are not normally found together: gongs and strings, drain pipes and drones. Nor does their behavior match aural expectations. Some tones are allowed to fade naturally, while others are cut off in mid-echo; for example, a series of chimes struck in one second, followed by silence in the next. In the old days, this effect was created through a tedious process of reel-to-reel: rewind, erase, proceed. Never is this more apparent than on the final track, “Simulacra”, which also features a telephone and a calliope. The latter adds warmth to what might otherwise be considered a clinical work; it’s the rare mechanical sound that connotes the presence of people.Ars Absondita includes versions of works initially presented in Leeds, Seoul, Vienna and New York, and includes sounds captured in Portugal, Austria, Slovakia and the U.K., as well as a wide variety of instruments, such as Hindu chimes and Tibetan bowls. It’s an international album in a very modern sense. And yet, despite its diversity, it speaks of sound and silence in a manner that all traditions can understand, challenging them to contemplate not what we hear, but how we hear. (Richard Allen)

Blackredeemer

JOAO CASTRO PINTO - ARS ABSCONDITA (CD by Oto) (in Vital Weekly @ http://www.vitalweekly.net/894.html)Apparently I am not supposed to say a lot about covers and such like, because in these days it's the music that counts. However the cover of this release is rather poorly designed, and looks like an early 90s pagemaker effort. I am not sure if I ever heard the music of Joao Castro Pinto, whose music is 'a collection of pieces based on the recreation of field recordings (from natural and urban proveniences) & sampled sounds (objects and utensils of our daily live) through d.s.p. techniques' and it's 'goal is to forge sonic spaces, departing from the actual locations of the sampled sounds to the unknown space of the composition: a field of potentialities and forces actualized by the composer that displays imbricate semantic relations which can be questioned, confirmed or contradicted by the listener's aural contingencies'. Each of the four pieces is described short what it is about and where it was performed - if at all. It's not a long CD, only thirty-three minutes, but Pinto is along with the best in his field. The name that most easily came to my mind was that of Roel Meelkop (who also had an excellent release on this label), with whom Pinto seems to share a love of careful computer processed field recordings. Sometimes bordering closely to the inaudible with a deep bass sound, and with a few high end glitches here and there, slowly building up to a mighty crescendo, only to be cut short, roughly and move along in an entirely different field. The third piece, 'Interspersed Memories' seems to me a bit simple in approach, but the other three are quite nice, from the intense 'Chasm' to the heavy cut up of 'Simulacra'. Modern day musique concrete which doesn't have that academic quality, and because of that sounds so much fresher than many of his more academic peers. (FdW) Address: http://oto-jpn.narod.ru/index/oto_releases/0-33

Umor

Ars Abscondita (@ http://sonicfield.org/2013/11/323/ )JOAO CASTRO PINTO(OtO 2013)Article / interview by David Vélez‘Ars abscondita’ is an interesting release by composer Joao Castro Pinto. It has plenty of narrative potential and the sounds present loads of detail and craft. This is a work where the influence of electroacoustic and concrete music-in the most academic sense- is strongly noticeable but that also presents moments where the sense of expression seems to be more free, incidental and organic. Even though I don’t consider myself a big advocate of electroacoustic music (because of the excessive exploitation of the formal gesture and the constraining and cliche-prone musical given structures) I feel that the mixture of electroacoustic and ‘experimental’ composition lines here is very fortunate.Structure wise ‘Ars abscondita’ is a carefully built composition that pays attention to individual details but where a very coherent overall structure remains.In order to know more about this work I contacted Joao Castro Pinto and asked him a few questions.Q (DV). Is there a concept, idea or subject behind the release?A (JCP). Yes, the album was composed in order to convey a main idea / concept.Nowadays, many sound artists occupy themselves on representing aspects of the soundscape, preconizing phonographic approaches. It has turned almost into a sort of sonic fashion…The idea of aurally depicting sonic environments can be interesting if the creative or artistic outlook on the soundscapes enhances, through the recording, processing and mixing stages, the listening experience, otherwise it results in a mimetic intent, towards which I cannot find any aesthetical interest. In an analogy with photography, a good picture does not result from the possibility of using a great camera, but on the creative singularity of the EYE of the photographer, which has an artistic sensitivity that is capable of enhancing certain aspects from the phenomenological continuum of the visual representation. This kind of positive segregation consists in an aesthetical act / decision, that results in an artistic point of view. The same situation is verifiable with aural related arts, meaning that it is not enough to possess a sound recorder, a mic and a computer to create an artistic sound work.‘Ars abscondita’ represents an attempt for a non linear sound approach, in terms of the practical skills / processes that are employed in the electroacoustic sculpting of field recordings, for the main idea of the album is not to simply depict field recordings, sound events / actual soundscapes (as phonography does), but to depart from real field recordings & sampled references (objects / instruments) to the realm of the unknown, of the trans-contextual.In practical terms, this means that the focus of the album is to recreate the denotative and connotative signs of the sound sources, reaching for an interplay where the semantic reference and its abstraction are presented simultaneously or sequenced, within mischievous or unclear boundaries.Finally, the title means that the art of working with sounds is in fact, ontologically considered, hidden and mysterious, for its potentialities remain always open and to be realized, and the act of listening is also a form of creation.Q. Do you think your approach was more formal or conceptual?A. My approach was conceptual, although it dealt with formal aspects, namely those concerning the composition. ‘Ars abscondita’ can be considered to be included in the realm of soundscape composition, although I have decided to adopt a distinct approach to the context term (if one considers common classified soundscape compositions).My main purpose, as stated, was not to represent real contexts, but to forge new and compelling sonic contexts which can propel the listener to an aesthetic interesting listening.Q. Tell me about the making of these compositionsThe pieces were composed in distinct times, but with the encompassing unity drive of the album.I will not extensively describe all the processes and elements of the pieces, but sketch the main ideas behind each piece.Effluvium is a piece that focus on exploring the water element in its diverse forms, presenting gestural movements within a scope that extends from dense sonic textures to micro subtle events, trying to imply the intrinsically rich potential of water samples. Field recordings were made through the use of various mics (condenser, contact and hydrophones) and extremely enhanced electroacoustic processes were used.Chasm is an extended version of a one minute piece that was premiered on the planetary event “The End of The World” at the Streaming Museum, on 21.12.2012, in N.Y.C..This piece was exclusively composed with recordings of water (recorded within several objects / surfaces) and kitchen appliances. The idea was to create an aural counterpart of a dramatic dive into the abyss, i.e., a kind of vortex trip into the unknown.Interspersed Memories – on strings, murmurs and gongs, was composed with string sounds (piano, santur), tibetan bowls / hindu chimes and was premiered at the 19th Seoul International Computer Music Festival 2012. The main goal of this piece was to present an aural narrative where the same samples where used and presented in such a dramatic way, that instrumental samples resemble sonic environments and sonic environmental textures are created through the use of instrumental sounds. The idea of the boundaries of perception / identification of memories and sound images is here at stake.Simulacra – on discrete movements & dense textures (version 0.1) is an extended & stereo reduction of an 8 channel piece, composed by the occasion of an invitation for a residency at the Electronic Music Studios of Leeds Metropolitan University (U.K.) in January 2013. This piece, which was based on recordings made in Portugal, Austria, Slovakia and in the U.K., had the main goal to present, as the name indicates, a simulated and extremely plastic sonic environment, which gained form as a sort of a canvas where sound objects fuse into sound events and vice versa, in utter non linearity, guiding the listener from gestural and morphological sonic transformations to outer forged soundscapes. Again, the creative interplay between the boundaries of real and abstracted references, is here extensively focused.In regard of the release title Joao added:The meaning of the title is : Ars = being the latin word for Art, the nominative case of the term Artem, which means both the practical skills that allow the artistic creation and the artistic products of art considered in themselves (a painting, a piece of music, a sculpture, etc…). Abscodita is the latin word for hidden, the nominative case of Absconditus, more concisely it expresses the connotations of unveiled, unclear or concealed.