19 July: Mon(o)rchestra live @ vilatone festival

Programmed by variz.org this was an improvisation performance featuring António Chaparreiro (guitar), Fala Mariam (trombone), João Castro Pinto (laptop), Nuno Rebelo (guitar), Peter Bastien (sax), Pedro Gonçalves (doublebass), Rui Alves (drums), Rui Viana (laptop) e Sei Miguel (pocket trumpet). It happened at the roman ruins of Vilamoura (Algarve / Portugal) with the musicians scattered around the ruins.

Pocketbook of Lightning in residency at Centa + 2 concerts in Lisbon

From 7 to 11 July we were in residency in CENTA (http://centa-tojeira.blogspot.com). Surrounded by nature, me and Marco spent some great days practicing, recording and videotaping our music. On the 12 we came back to Lisbon for a concert at CCB (Belém Cultural Center - Lisbon). A few days later, on the 18th, we did another gig, this time at a big old flat in Lisbon, where each room was a venue, kind of an independent party that lasted through out the night.

related posts:
3 improvisation gigs
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Oficinas do Convento, 29-03-2008
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Musicbox (Lisbon)16 of May
my 2006

Feminine

I've been working on the music for "Feminine", a choreography by Paulo Ribeiro, since the beggining of May, but the most intense period was the second half of June. By the 6th of July the music was ready, featuring my wife Cathrin Loerke singing and the voice of Richard Zenith reading some texts that the portuguese poet Fernando Pessoa originnaly wrote in english. Richard is one of the great specialists on Pessoa's work and the texts i used were selected by him. Cathrin, apart from the singing, did all the graphic design work for "Feminine". The music has a flavour of the 70's rock, as requested by Paulo Ribeiro, and all instruments are played by myself. There is a very nice guitar solo "Santana style" that i realy enjoy! The cherry on the icecream is the song "Oh long before" (Cathrin singing) - couldn't it be a hit?

click here to listen to it: oh long before

I met Lulu!

From 8 to 15 of June, one more period working on songs for Lulu. This time Mark came with Alexandra Sarramona, who will perform the role of Lulu. During this short period we focused on recording the voice of Alexandra in the existing songs and do the necessary pitch changes to adapt the songs to her voice. She revealed herself as a very nice and charming woman, with a beautiful and transparent voice.

related posts:
Mark Tompkins in Lisbon
lulu: some more songs
3 more songs for Lulu

Dalton Brothers @ OdaGuarda festival, 7 June 2008

Granular association was invited to propose a formation to perform at OdaGuarda Festival, so they suggested this sextet which performed in Brussels in November 2007
(see related post Granular : : P.A.R.T.S. (Brussels, 3 and 4/11/2007)). If in Brussels we performed with a large group of dancers, at OdaGuarda it was just a concert, though we kept more or less the same frame for improvisation, directed by myself on the spot with gestures. Unfortunatelly there wasn't much audience since the gig was the same night Portugal football team played against Turkey for the European Cup. Anyway, we decided to call this sextet "The Dalton Brothers" because of the height of the musicians: João Martins is Joe Dalton, Ricardo Freitas is Jack Dalton, Emido Buchinho is William Dalton, Miguel Cabral is Averell; i'm still fighting with Ulrich Mitzlaff to decide which of us is Lucky Luke and Rantanplan.

Performing the space @ Alkantara festival

remake of my performance in December 2007 (see related post it will be what we make it, this time within the frame of Alkantara festival, Lisbon, May 27. Here is the video of the first performance in December 2007:

3 improvisation gigs

2 gigs of my duo "Pocketbook of Lightning" (Marco Franco on drums and myself on electric guitar), first one at ZDB gallery in Lisbon (May 9) and second one at Outfest in Barreiro (May 24). Here is an old video of Pocketbook of Lighning playing, back in 2003:

pocket book of lightning


In this festival i played also with "A Parte Maldita", an improvisation septet lead by guitar player Antonio Chaparreiro.

A PArte Maldita live @ Outfest

related posts (Pocketbook of Lightning):
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Oficinas do Convento, 29-03-2008
Pocketbook of Lightning live at Musicbox (Lisbon)16 of May
my 2006

related posts (A Parte Maldita):
10 January: A parte maldita - impro at Fábrica do Braço de Prata
podcasts of A Parte Maldita: http://lumpenmusic.podomatic.com/