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LP
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CREP 107LP
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After impressions of Unguja and Borneo islands, Discrepant's chieftain Gonçalo F. Cardoso continues his sonic travelogue on insularity with Impressões de Várias Ilhas. Literally translated as "impressions from various islands," this third tome dwells on recordings and inspirations from three archipelagos of Macaronésia. Soaking in the sounds and recollections from Azores, Cape Verde and Canary Islands these diaristic endeavors spread throughout a number of real environments, from water caves and black stone beaches and lagoons to small harbors and everyday life scenarios, to project them into this not quite imaginary but not quite real memory haze that goes from a deeply personal impression to a resonating one. Melding raw field recordings with processed ones and synthesized landscapes, Cardoso never falters into sonic tour-ism, conjuring small-ish takes both vivid and dreamy, infused with a sense of wonder that feels both bewildering, com-forting and escapist. The breaking waves of "Bufadeiros de São Vicente" soothing in their irregular pattern, mingling with the lone echoing tones not completely removed from Black Dice's "Beaches & Canyon's" most pensive passages, flow into the underwater ambience and suspended pads of "La Cueva Scuba Livre," as reflections of the same sea crashing in on different lands, nature's psychogeography. Further on, the queasy warm chord and scraping murmurs of "Noite em Rabo de Peixe" mirror their nighttime framing while "Rãs em Xoxo" veers closer to pure musique concréte, crossed by a subdued feeling of unease that lingers in the nostalgia of "Cozido da Caldeira Velha," brimming within the haze of a Boards of Canada vignette. Summoning the past lives and future hauntings of its scenery, "Salinas de Pedra Lume" is like the quiet epic of the album, meandering into the unknown among crackling field recordings, decaying synths and flute-like howls -- or is it howl-like flutes? -- recurring as glimpses from foregone existences, not necessarily Gonçalo's own.
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2LP
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CREP 100LP
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More than two years after the release of Impressões de Outra Ilha, Discrepant's head honcho returns home under his birth name with the appropriately titled Exotic Immensity. Conjured from the seeds of an exhibition of dioramas at Le Bon Accueil in Rennes, this double LP feels quietly epic in scope, a sprawling travelogue through imagined scenarios and what if possibilities. Discarding the more-rough around the edges collages of previous works under a myriad of aliases, Cardoso's approach here is more meticulously composed, with seamless transitions within his own personal soundworld giving way to this hallucinated landscape of field recordings, subtle electronic tweaks, cascading patterns, queasy ambiences and kösmiche-like synth harmonies. Perfectly embodied in Evan Crankshaw's cut up poem, filled with occult and sci-fi references such as Agrippa's Book of the Occult, William Blake's Book of Urizen, Dr. Moreau, or '50s pop-science books, the music on Exotic Immensity transverses time and cartography in a deeply personal matter, from the cricket-like textures and reverse loops of "Réplica(s)" until the closing moments with the touching chord progression and mangled voices of "Pó Nuno." In-between, the foghorn meets bass clarinet melody of "Ossos" recalls the unassuming but essential harmonic patterns of Laurence Crane, surrounded by an almost percussive sheet of field recordings that drift into the gliding synth tones of "Desumanização (I & II)" until tape orchestral swells carry listeners into the aether. "Aquário Novo Mundo" brims in an undisplaced cartography, from electronic marimba stabs to synth choirs, the call of the loom to labyrinthine keyboard harmonies and underwater radiance. The muffled looped rhythmic sequence of "Imagem/Miragem," cut by the glow of cascading synths doesn't offer a reply. Nor does it need to.
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