By now a regular and esteemed presence among the Discrepant sprawling household via releases with projects such as Alförjs, Banha da Cobra or Jibóia, Mestre André "resurrects" his O Morto alias (bad pun somewhat intended) after 2016 "The Forest, The People And The Spirits".
With a diaristic approach where field recordings function as remnants of his surrounding reality and subsequent memories to be processed and recontextualized into an expressionist whole, O Morto expands that previous Discrepant release sonic palette unto uncharted cartographies.
Based on a number of field recordings taken during a life-changing trip to Morocco that felt like a fever dream, "Dans la Gorge d'un Monstre" reenacts that hazy and hallucinatory mindframe through five tracks where no vivid recollection persists, tainted by the extrasensory feeling of not being quite there. A sonic fiction that goes from the processed cymbals and pummelling drums of "The Gorge" with Andrés' mates in Jibóia, through moroccan Gimbri player Ayoub El Ayady and Khalid Boulhaman's rattling Krakebs on "Lila" and the slowed down Eccojams vibes of "Out of the Atlas" to the dreamy aquatic soundscapes and arpeggios of the appropriately titled "Princesas Batráquio". Comprising the whole of the B side, "A Desert of Rain" is a slow evolving wonder where gong-like tones drift beneath scrambled transmissions of unknown origin, eventually giving way to synapse inducing drone motifs and scraps of realities collapsing among themselves – fire into water, a jetstream into steps, maybe none of this.
Along with the LP, the release comes with a companion piece tape titled "Ifrits Habitent", a more impressionistic and unadulterated account of the same travel that could well be this side of the mirror. Then again, maybe he never made it back from the other side. Who's to know?
O Morto is one of the aliases of Mestre André (André Pinto), who works as a field-recordist, performer, composer and sound artist for film, dance, performance and theater. Mestre André composes electro-acoustic sound work for multi-channel systems as O Morto, improvises electronic music as Alacrau and produces beats as Notwan. He belongs to the bands Älforjs,
Jibóia and
Banha Da Cobra.
Beekeeper involved in the ecological thinking of aesthetics in natural contexts, he has explored aesthetics of rupture, with theoretical work on "sociopolitical aesthetics of noise and art". Now, this work reflects on an ecological thinking of creative practice and aesthetic relationships within natural human and nonhuman contexts.
