@C – Music for Empty Spaces

@C
Music for Empty Spaces
Baskaru

This sounds like layering vintage records over field recordings and adding some sweet harmonies. Something sad, even when the bird chirps away in the beginning of this seven part work. There’s a wonderful melange of upright bass with digital skips and other percussion. @C are multi-talented artists Miguel Carvalhais and Pedro Tudela who have also recorded for the wonderful Portuguese label Crónica. At times there’s a tense quiet filled with the kerplunk of fishing gear, at others it’s a big jumbo jet fueling at dock. If this were but just white noise, how appealing, a sophisticated background noise would be. But beyond the striated theatrics of these layers there are beautiful sequences where a bare piano bleeds through the hum, and this is where this record comes together most physically on 76.5 (listening to K.J.), which is really just a ‘tweener piece at under two minutes, but helps navigate a sort of curvature in what’s to come. Though in the closing tracks a foreboding friction reveals itself in the form of a bee-like buzz, and burrowed down minimal ambiance, a hint of the outdoors. When it rains upon a metal surface it reminds me of home, of shelter, protection and wonder of the elements. It’s like a organic drum beat, romantic and yet unexpected, flaring and receding. Add to that a blurry jazz jam session, the storm brews thicker and then suddenly adrift in drone. For “empty spaces” these parts making a whole seem quite densely packed with all the detritus and credible umph one might want to experience on an effort so diversely performed and delicately lain. These men seem to muster the knack for life and breath.