Ressonâncias

This is one of the more ambient compositions I've made for Ordem do Ó.

Evoking water, and the many ways it sounds across its different forms — rivers, sea, rain, plumbing, and so on — got me thinking in terms of overlapping layers of sonic material: separate, undulating lines that came together at various points.

Using field recordings of watercourses was an obvious response. Less obvious was bringing in wind instruments, since air is another of the 4 elements that often shows up alongside artistic explorations of Water.

For the most part, nearly every piece I made for this dance work consists of water sounds that have been worked — often through convolution with themselves and with other sounds — until they become evocative textures, distinct from a simple recording.

Descer o Rio

The rhythmic clack of the shishi-odoshi has always fascinated me. When Pedro Ramos, choreographer, dancer and artistic director of Ordem do Ó, invited me to write something more meditative, that sound — recorded during a trip to Japan — was the obvious choice. While still on Niponic soil, I also recorded a passage on a Japanese flute that's followed me through my work of recent years. A set of piano chords, stretched out until they lose their melodic and harmonic meaning, became the foundation of this piece.

Água Rasteira

I've never thought of myself as remotely capable at the piano, but there are moments when I find myself drawn to its timbre, paired with the sounds of a kalimba and water droplets. The percussive attack and the string's resonance give it a quality that's hard to reach with other instruments. This is, as a result, a fairly conventional piece in how it handles musical structure, harmony, melody, and even instrumentation. Even so, it's one I'm proud of for its consistency, coherence, and the effect it had on the show alongside the choreography.

Grânulos

A piece where I set out, deliberately, to evoke the distortion of amateur reel-to-reel tape recording. The first version of this track had the saxophone sounding crystal-clear, but it didn't feel right for the atmosphere I wanted, especially once I layered in the voice of one of the dancers. That's when the idea came to record the sound onto cassette and then digitise it again. What came out of it evokes some of the character of Terry Riley's music, and even Vangelis's, which pleases me a great deal.