LEONARDO ROSADO - Washed away memories
released by Pure Wave Recordings (2013)
“Évoquant les notions de rêve, de récurrence, et le caractère vague et fragmentaire des souvenirs et de la mémoire, les 8 titres qui constituent Washed Away Memories ont été enregistrés à Göteborg en Suède, où le Portugais patron du label Heart and Soul est installé depuis l’an dernier. Un changement d’environnement et de climat qui n’a pas manqué d’influer également sur ses compositions comme en témoigne Excerpt (On The Cyclic Nature Of Winter), morceau de clôture dont les boucles brumeuses et nostalgiques irriguées de field recordings glitchés suggèrent dans le même temps la douceur cotonneuse de la chute des flocons de neige et la poésie plus abrupte de la fonte des glaces”
this is definitely not a straightforward album built around the familiar theme of memory; the way it is built, the way its sounds interact betray an enormous sensibility from which all disturbances spring, not methodically but poetically, as ephemeral as any act of remembrance.
![BIRDS OF PASSAGE & LEONARDO ROSADO - Dear and Unfamiliar
released by Denovali Records (2011)
LISTEN/BUY VINYL-CD-DIGITAL HERE
“It’s late, but the temperature outside seems not to have dropped. Sounds cling like a layer of sweat, smother like a blanket, stick like dust. You listen, still but not relaxed. Lazy, but not comfortably so. Sliding through an almost intolerable heat. Drowsy but agitated at the same time. There’s no way you’re getting to sleep on such a humid night.
You are in India, or Indonesia, or somewhere in South-East Asia at least, somewhere hot. And humid. You thought the warmth would be pleasant after another cold northern European winter. It is not. Yet, it’s not exactly unpleasant either – that’s not the right word for it. More like: simultaneously sweet and unsettling. A languid state of emergency; a slow alert. You cannot move for all the solid weight of air pressing down on you. And yet, you cannot sit still.
Perhaps this goes some way towards explaining the classical Indian drone – constant movement without moving anywhere, a huge cloud of energy that seems to melt time even as it sharpens it… Perhaps such music could not have been developed without the state of highly agitated slowness that intense humidity brings. There are hints of classical Indian drone in the music you are listening to now – more classical than those European and American ambient soundscapes that often lay claim to the name ‘drone’. And yet there is a woman’s voice, she sings about Paris and lullabies and kisses, not in Hindi nor Brajbhasha but in English. The voice hangs heavy over fuzzy guitars, synths and manipulated acoustics like a heat haze over the horizon. The lush, warm sounds leave you unsettled and disarmed. They are as vague and intense as a dream, and they will not let you rest easy. “Dear and Unfamiliar” would seem a strikingly appropriate title.
Birds of Passage is a psuedonym of New Zealand musician Alicia Merz. For “Dear and Unfamiliar” she has collaborated with Portugal’s Leonardo Rosado, and together they have created an album of dense, unsettling beauty.[…]” - Nathan Thomas for Fluid Radio](http://25.media.tumblr.com/tumblr_ltfch2nugw1qiqpm3o1_1280.jpg)
