1990

True Love Will Find You in the End

the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me // my eyes can't differentiate themselves from the things they see // when I look at you part of me is gone // two are not one // but we were looking at each other // why is seeing such disorganization?

Documentation of "the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me), composition in installation format for the Sound Studies and Sonic Arts UdK Berlin Master Exhibition.
clay, plaster, voices
multichannel composition

May 30th - June 2nd, 2024 at Collegium Hungaricum Berlin

voices: Bibi Dória, Bruno Brandolino, Mariana Carvalho, Rupert Enticknap, Oda Egjar Starheim
recording engineer: Moana Holenstein
some quotes: Anne Carson, Clarice Lispector, Naná Vasconcelos, Milford Graves and Sappho
ceramic workshop: Pumpenwerk

the melter of limbs (now again) stirs me [installation]

ACHIGÃ

A Days Walking in the Hills South of Glenfinnan, Lochaber, Scotland 2025
High on Sgùrr Ghiubhsachain.
Nobody seen all day. Sounds heard like Ghosts under a Huge Blue Dome of Silence.
6th April 2025

MKH8020 spaced pair + Zoom F3

no company but the wind

Nice to the these back in local clearfells, a sure sign that my Nightjar will soon be here too. Everything is early this year as we're having crazy heat for the time of year. -1c at night and 20c in the day time! that and we haven't had rain for almost 2 months...Not the April showers we are used to in the Uk at all. 

Gear: Sound Devices MixPre 6 ii / Telinga Dish W/Mk 4 +Stereo Mk 2's

Tree Pipit Song and Calls - MixPre-7641

Oosh, difficult to get close to these guys singing, I've always struggled as they always seem to see or hear me coming and drop straight down from the top of the tree to cover. Couldn't actually see this bird but think it worked in my favour lol. 

Gear: Sound Devices MixPre 6 ii / Telinga Dish w/Schoeps Mk 2 + Stereo MK 2's 

Mistle Thrush Song - MixPre-7629

Lyre Bird Male, 5 april 2025

MS Schoeps - Mixpre6

Lyre-Bird-Dandenong-Victoria

From the forthcoming album "Nuits Sans Nuit", to be released on May 30th.

Pierre Bastien and Michel Banabila return with Nuits Sans Nuit, their second collaboration following their Baba Soirée debut from 2023. Recorded as an intuitive exchange between Rotterdam and Valencia, the album emerged from a simple ping-pong process: Banabila sculpted sounds and atmospheres, to which Bastien responded with his distinctive instrumental palette: flute-augmented cornet, mechanised log drum, and more. Mixed by Banabila, the result is a raw yet immersive work that resonates with a somnambulant, wide-awake presence.

Pierre Bastien: "When Michel had finished mixing and editing, I listened to the whole record and sensed a dreamlike quality in it. It reminded me of a book I read years ago: ‘Nuits Sans Nuit Et Quelques Jours Sans Jour’ by Michel Leiris.  Around that same time, some fifty years ago, I was playing in Nu Creative Methods with Bernard Pruvost, a duo that appears on the Nurse With Wound list. Since then, Pruvost has turned to painting, and his work is as dreamlike as our music. We asked him to contribute one of his paintings for the album cover."

Nuits Sans Nuit unfolds through shifting shades of melancholy. "I don't know how to describe the feeling of these crazy times we live in," says Banabila. "Les plus désespérés sont les chants les plus beaux,”  Bastien quotes De Musset. Wordless yet deeply expressive, the album invites listeners into a space of contemplation, where meaning emerges through immersion — like ritual music carrying an unspoken message. Echoes of saudade, blues, fado, and soleá surface in the duo’s playful noise, reimagined through their singular vocabulary.

DL / LP

Pierre Bastien, Michel Banabila: Le Système Déraille (Pingipung 090, LP / digital)

Always difficult recording nocturnal subjects when you can't see them, especially with a parabolic dish that's super directional. I don't think I got it 'smack' on with this recording but I'm more gutted that the female wasn't present as prior to me getting the recording gear out, she was doing an epic bubbling call back to the male and it would have made such a nice recording but a car pulled up and she flew off...Till next time owls! 

Gear: Sound Devices MixPre ii / Telinga Dish w/Schoeps Mk 2 + Stereo Mk 2's 

Tawny Owl Male - MixPre-7664

Lundi 7 avril au crépuscule.
C’est l’heure du trafic routier du retour. Mais c’est aussi l’heure du dernier chant du Rougegorge familier (Erithacus rubecula), des derniers cris de Canard colvert (Anas platyrhynchos) et du début du chorus des grenouilles. La Chouette hulotte (Strix aluco) répète inlassablement son cri lorsque éclate le chant des premiers Rossignols philomèle (Luscinia megarhynchos), encore absents hier.
La Corneille noire (Corvus corone) pousse elle aussi un dernier cri et le Renard roux (Vulpes vulpes) glapit : la nuit s’est installée. 


Twilight on Monday 7 April.
Time for the return journey. But it's also time for the last song of the European Robin (Erithacus rubecula), the last calls of the Mallard (Anas platyrhynchos) and the start of the frog chorus. The Tawny Owl (Strix aluco) repeats its call tirelessly as the first Common Nightingales (Luscinia megarhynchos), still absent yesterday, sing.
The Carrion Crow (Corvus corone) also gives a last cry and the Red Fox (Vulpes vulpes) yelps: night has set in. 

Premiers Rossignols

“João Alegria is an essential figure in the Portuguese underground music scene. With a prolific career spanning over a decade, the guitarist – as he prefers to be called – embodies artistic commitment, resilience, and a deep devotion to crafting dark, experimental soundscapes. The numerous albums the Lisbon-based musician has released testify to a sonic vision akin to its object of study: unhurried and unperturbable, yet continuous and tempestuous."

— João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

“You paint for fame & status, I paint for freedom & awareness”, reads one of the vertical graffiti that Mr.Paradox Paradise painted on some Berlin building. Likewise, there is nothing in João Alegria’s art that is done with the intention of fame or likes. He spent more than a decade editing with recognition limited to the “community” of sound nomads. “I’ve been doing this for some time and I don’t have a very wide audience”, he admits. However, who knows, knows. And who knows, like it. João Alegria’s music is for connoisseurs. Perhaps that will always be the case.
.
However, the unique contours of his art, combined with a stubborn aesthetic consistency and prolificacy, are the characteristics that simultaneously nest and vitalize it. The unconditional and obstinate way in which this “guitarist” – as he likes to be called – has created his work is a rare case of perseverance. His motivation? It’s not entirely explicit, but somewhere between the love of music and the physiological need to create lives the truth of João Alegria. If he lives because he breathes, he seems to make music because he has to live. One senses in his speech an inevitability of cathartic genesis that surreptitiously emerges between the lines like a figure wandering through the night.
João Alegria can also move through the shadows, but his music definitely points to the heavens, full of verticality” 

– João Morado (Beats for Peeps, Cosmofonia, Jazz.pt)

ACHIGÃ

João Alegria

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