diatribes + Abdul Moimême
"Complaintes de marée basse"

with:
Abdul Moimême (two prepared guitars, metalic objects, springs, cymbals, metronome)
d'incise (laptop, objects, various instruments, snare drums, bow, cymbals, gramophone)
Cyril Bondi (drums, percussions, bow, cymbals, objects, small instruments)

recorded in Lisbon, August 28 & 29, 2009.
mixed by d'incise.
masterised by Wolfgang Rüfenacht.
font design by Sonia/.
available on INSUBORDINATIONS netlabel
[insubcd02], 2010
the cd can be ordered on Insub's shop.









***


From the same band:





Press:


" the duo's subtle distinguishing mark develops out of Bondi's relationship to free jazz and d'incise's relationship to ambient electronica and free improvisation. As environmentally diffused as the sounds may become, Bondi is often knitting at pulse, creating polyrhythms and a momentum that animates the whole, keeping it moving while d'incise pulls sounds from the ether or the street. The spontaneous character of the music is insistently maintained by working constantly with other players, as if Diatribes is only complete when it's Bondi, d'incise and someone else, as if Diatribes is a principle that always includes the other. The duo has recently released three works, each with a third musician; as different as the guests are, Diatribes manages to create a distinct identity. [...]
On Complaintes de Marée Basse with the Lisbon-based guitarist Abdul Moimême, the three musicians seem to be much more aligned in their approach. Moimême plays two prepared table-top guitars, metal objects and small instruments, and both he and d'incise have cymbals in their list of instruments. The playful sound sources extend to Moimême playing metronome and d'incise gramophone. At times the sound is almost industrialthe scraping of metal, the sound of large objects falling-at others it has the most remarkable delicacy, fragile glissandi and barely audible string scrapings. Identity and perspective are constantly changing here. Little noises arise and are gradually subsumed into louder ones or else disappear like unknown but evidently endangered insects in a distant ecosystem. A snare drum rhythm beats against the scratch of a gramophone needle on an exit groove. The sounds are at times so intimate you feel that you are ear-next to a bowed cymbal or a mallet-struck string; at other times the sonic vocabulary of random echoing metal suggests a freight yard, industrial noise in which sound is only a side effect of another process. It is this shifting perspective, this fluctuating succession of different scales-from closet to airplane hangar-that makes this the remarkable dreamscape that it is."
[...]
Invisibility, anonymity, and pseudonymity are clearly important here (another Diatribes performance with HKM+ and other German musicians was "recorded in an abandoned building in Leipzig"), for this is music shaped by the acuity of consciousness and the porous frontier of identity, whether of the sound, the instrument or the maker. Watching this music being made might diminish its sonic appeal; living here only in the ear, it elaborates on mysteries of identity which are matters of both cognition and psychology. It's fitting that some of the works themselves inhabit an area both grey and plural, as limited edition works of art or downloads."
Stuart Broomer/pointofdeparture.org

"Tonight I have been listening to another CD involving the Swiss duo Diatribes, who are D'Incise (laptop, assorted bits of percussion and a gramophone) and Cyril Bondi (percussion and objects). On this disc, a release that is also available as a free download on the excellent Insubordinations netlabel here sees them joined by a prepared guitarist named Abdul Moimême, though I suspect that that name may well be a pseudonym. So as you can go and get the music for free anyway, part of me does wonder why I am reviewing it here, but its quite an enjoyable release so here goes anyway. Diatribes have always struck me as belonging firmly in the AMM tradition of improvisation, building their music in a laminal manner, buzzing electronics and metallic, often bowed percussion swelling and subsiding slowly. The addition of the prepared guitars here leads me to think that way even more, as although Moiême's contributions are quite varied, and as cheap and lazy a comparison as it may be, every so often sounds appear (vibrating springs, metal against pick up etc) that remind me of Keith Rowe. Add this to the streams of percussion and its hard not to find the classic AMM sound evoked. To be clear though, this isn't a bad thing at all. There is plenty of depth and variety in this release, which before I forget to tell you is named, Complaintes de marée basse. (Laments of low tide? beautiful if this is the case, and quite fitting) but across the seven tracks there is an underlying sensation of dark, brooding slowness, and that feeling of gathering clouds that was present in so many of the trio AMM albums just before the heavens opened. Complaintes de marée basse has seven tracks though, and so 'the arc' isn't as prevalent here and the pieces build to their little mini climaxes without quite the same sense of grandeur, but the image of low waves washing up on a beach at low tide is certainly a fitting one."
Although the guitar stands out in places, its generally quite hard to split the three musicians apart here, but this doesn't matter as listening carefully is all about the blending and collision of the amassed tiny details and textures that are built up to make this music. There is nothing groundbreaking here, and no one element stands out as worth noting above all others, but none of this matters. The music here is a great example of modern electroacoustic free improvisation as it should be done, sounds merging and folding together in one moment, colliding and contrasting the next. Everything progresses gradually, but it does keep progressing, so there is little repetition or any resorting to drones. What more is there to say? Not a great deal really. I played Complaintes de marée basse through four times overall today and it didn't wear thin at all, the detail in the music allowing it to sound different each time as I heard new elements in it on each subsequent spin. The music is available for free, so if you enjoy this area of music (and if you don't, why are you reading this blog?!) then I recommend you download it and take a listen. If its not your cup of tea then you've lost no more than forty-seven minutes of your time, but if you like it, as I suspect you may, then why not click the paypal button at the Insubordinations site and support them by buying a physical copy of the CD."
Richard Pinell/the watchfull ear

"Swiss improvising duo Diatribes offer us another new collaboration, following their memorable team-up with the UK's Barry Guy which resulted in a strong piece of free grumbly-music with some political undertones. On Complaintes De Marèe Basse, Abdul Moimême joins D'Incise and Cyril Bondi to create what they call an "electro-acoustic oriented album". This phrase may refer to the two prepared guitars (hopefully electric, amplified, and strewn with fragments of junk) that Abdul wields like two massive metallic clubs, ready to smite all opponents of liberty and free expression. Better take cover when this sauce-box starts rubbing his poisoned strings, as he seems equipped to summon the force of an electrical storm (in his quiet and brooding way, of course). His gloom-laden thunderclaps sit well with the skittery multiple percussion effects, bowed objects and laptop twitterments from the two Swiss madcaps on these 2009 recordings made in Lisbon."
Ed Pinsent/the sound projector

"Diatribes walks a unique path, between European free improvisation and microsonic experimentation. The duo of D'incise and Cyril Bondi between them are credited, on Complaintes de Mare Basse, with playing laptop, objects, snare drums, bow, cymbals, gramophone, drums, percussions, bow, cymbals, as well as "various instruments." Somehow, despite that plethora of material, they manage to bring a third player into the mix, Abdul Moimême (equally equipped: "two prepared guitars, metalic objects, springs, cymbals, metronome"), and still sound subdued, remote, even tiny at times, all that noisy detail distilled to the point of being nearly silent. Exactly how many free improvisers can you fit on the head of a pin? Perhaps the answer is three. The first track, "Pavillon Noir," is by far the most hectic of the batch, and once the album proceeds past it, all the banging and clanking and scraping gets ratcheted down to the point where it sounds like field recordings of a particularly busy old furnace, especially on "Voile et Vapeur," in which the interplay is at once bleak and fanciful."
disquiet.com

"Obwohl Vieles der Phantasie überlassen bleibt, ist die Begegnung des Genfer Improduos Diatribes mit dem portugiesischen Gitarristen Moimme programmatisch ein Seestück'. Alle Drei arbeiten mit perkussiven Mitteln, mit Krimskrams, Cymbals, Snare Drums, Stahlfedern, allen voran Drummer Cyril Bondi. D'Incise operiert dazu mit Laptop, der vom Variable Geometry Orchestra her bekannte Portugiese spielt gleich zwei Gitarren, präpariert. So stellen sie maritime Bilder vor das innere Auge, Schiffsrümpfe, die sich knarrend aneinander reiben, den Lebensraum von Krustentieren, das Spiel von Tiefenstrmungen mit Wrackteilen, das Schleifen und Kratzen an Untiefen, das Lotsen durch Nebelschleier und diesige Sicht, zuletzt dennoch Schiffbruch. Der Grund der See ist ein Park mit schwarzen Pavillons. Weniger bildhaft gehört, rumoren hier überwiegend metallische Geräusche in einem ständigen Fluss aus dongender, knurschender, sirrender Unruhe. Meist klickern, pluckern und knarzen sechs Hnde wie kleine Brandungswellen nur mit Kieseln und Metallstückchen. Mal pflügt ein Geisterschiff durch den Dunst und Fetzen von einem alten Grammophon wehen vorüber. "Pavillon Noir" wird geprägt durch erst wuseliges, dann repetitives Drumming, sirrende und knistrige Elektronik und gitarristisches Drahtharfen, wie Moimême es so deutlich und intensiv nur hier offeriert, mit Crescendo- und Decrescendowellen. "Naufrage" klangmalt zuletzt statt einen groen Crash die ominösen Liebkosungen, mit denen der Meeresgrund einen Neuankömmling erkundet. [ba 68 rbd]"
Bad Alchemy/Rigobert Dittmann

"Voici une deuxième parution physique pour l'étiquette web Insubordinations. Il s'agit d'une collaboration entre le duo suisse Diatribes (l'électronicien-percussionniste D'Incise et le percussionniste Cyril Bondi) et le guitariste portugais Abdul Moimême (ne me questionnez pas sur son nom, je n'en ai aucune idée). Complaintes de marée basse est donc un disque trßs percussif, Moimême faisant grand usage de préparations sur sa guitare, la transformant en mini-orchestre de gamelan, conjuguè aux manipulations percussives de Diatribes. C'est un disque un peu obtus mais vif, aux interactions parfois contradictoires (ce qui n'est pas une mauvaise chose). Certains trouveront qu'il manque de variété, mais sa palette sonore limitée me plaît, en fait."
Here's the netlabel Insubordinations's second physical release: a collaboration between Swiss duo Diatribes (electronician/percussionist D'Incise and percussionist Cyril Bondi) and Portuguese guitarist Abdul Moimême. Complaintes de marée basse is a very percussive record, since Moimême uses mostly guitar preparations, turning his instrument into a mini-gamelan - combined to Diatribes' percussive manipulations. This record is a little difficult to get into but vivid, with occasionally contradictory interactions (which is not a bad thing). Some will find it lacking diversity, but I actually find its limited sound palette enticing."
François Couture/monsieur delire

"Complaintes de marée basse: sette improvvisazioni caratterizzate da atmosfere sospese, per me piuttosto intriganti ed emozionali."
mauro graziani