Angle(s)

Saturday, July 18, 2015

Pedro Chambel 13 Questions

 

Pedro Chambel, doctorate in Medieval History, member of the Institute of Medieval Studies, investigator of the Foundation for the Science and Technology and part-time musician. Studied classical guitar and in 1995 participated in a workshop of improvised guitar oriented by the guitarist and composer Vitor Rua. One such laborer is the Lisbon-based guitarist, Pedro Chambel, who works in academic research, and issues his solo works at the rate of three-per-decade, a refreshing antidote to the unfettered prolixity of many of his fellow improvisers.



From the first, the 2001 release Anamnesis, a work of unspooled, unstable micro-sounds that seem to consist of a guitar's entrails and viscera, to last year's exacting listen, Utpote, Chambel has drilled and distilled his guitar into the smallest pools and eddies of sound possible.


Utpote approaches Sachiko M's sine work in its focus and rigor. He is working with only the sparest reference to the guitar's historical characteristics, creating a substrata of noises that rise and fall around a continuous, 38 minute burred, possibly e-bowed, tone. Utpote seldom rises, the steady-state, spinal-tone aside, above nearly inaudible. Press up closer, and there's a world of febrile activity at work-pliant, tactile and aflutter, what is striking about these recondite sounds is how many of them issue from Chambel's hands themselves. You can hear his caresses, fussing and flickering over the instrument's body, the ceaseless tonal hum and what is at play around it more like some sort of light cast, than music.




Chambel, like Sachiko M, and a few other contemporaries, trusts his listeners to find in the sparest of sound worlds the evocative and vital, albeit heard quite often only if you incline carefully to sift through the sonic shavings and silt. The self-limits and rigor of his approach over the past decade, to say nothing of the modest release schedule, is intriguing to me. Chambel is dreaming his own sound; we should pause now and then, and consider the sacrifice.




What do you remember about your first approach to sound?


The need to make something with it.




Which was the first and the last record you bought with your own money?

I don't remember exactly the first but maybe it was King Crimson's Lizard or Yes's Relayer. The last was DiSanto, Hoffman - Three exercises



Why do you need music? Can we live without music?

I need music and sound. It's like breathing to me.

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab070.htm

Tell me one impossible project do you like to realize?

Writing a symphony.


What are the challenges and benefits of today's digital music scene?

For me gave new tools for making music and that's a challenge.




How do you feel listening to your own music?

I don't like to do listen my pieces. I always know the next sound.

http://www.impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab088.htm

What’s your craziest project about?

The next piece I'll do.


Tell me one musical work which has provoked a change in your music.

The first piece that I heard from Schoenberg.

 
art and photography by Anu Tuominen

Where are your roots? What are your secret influences?

My life and the my backgroud culture.




If you could, what would you say to yourself 30 years ago, about your musical career?

I don't have musical career.




What quality do you most empatize with in a musician?

The sounds that he makes.


Which living or dead artist would you like to collaborate with?

John Cage



What instruments and tools do you use?

Microphones, Reaktor, guitar and generators of sinewaves.


Pedro Chambel (electro acoustic guitar), Vitor Rua (tonemeister) 


SELECTED DISCOGRAPHY

 
1995 Vitor Rua & Os Ressoadores
Scratch 
AnAnAnA
 

2001  Pedro Chambel
Anamnesis 
 Creative Sources


2005  Pedro Chambel
Bruit  
Creative Sources


2010 Pedro Chambel
Utpote 
Fractal Sources


2012 Pedro Chambel, Bruno Duplant, Julien Héraud 
Worked Without Noise 
Rhizome.s 



2012 Bruno Duplant, Pedro Chambel, Jamie Drouin 
Field By Memory Inhabited 1 & 2  
Rhizome.s

http://impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab070.htm
2013 Pedro Chambel, Bruno Duplant 
I Do Not Really Know What Music Is, 
But Contrariwise Quite Rather Well What Is A Sound 
Impulsive Habitat    


2014 Chambel / Duplant / Rossique 
Sonho Perdido  
Audiotalaia 

http://www.impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab096.htm
2014 Pedro Chambel
Nothing Ever Happens - Chance Music Number 1 
Impulsive Habitat   

http://www.impulsivehabitat.com/releases/ihab088.htm
2014 Lance Austin Olsen , Pedro Chambel, Bruno Duplant
Que La Nuit Ne Dit Pas 
Impulsive Habitat     


2014 Bruno Duplant / Pedro Chambel / Fergus Kelly 
(Winter Pale) Red Sun 
Eh? 


2014 Ilia Belorukov / Pedro Chambel / Bruno Duplant / Kurt Liedwart 
Quiet Place Recomposed 
Theme Park 




285 Questions INDEX
Prepared Guitar Facebook

 
Let us sculpt in hopeless silence
all our dreams of speaking

Fernando Pessoa The Book of Disquiet