Permute

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“Behind this CD by the Lisbon-based laptop improv collective [des]integração hides two previous releases on the label Sirr. The first one is revealed in the liner notes: Violinist Carlos Zingaro’s solo album Cage of Sand has provided all the source material used in Permute — the man also sat at the mixing desk during this live event. The second one is Marc Behrens’ album Integração, which seems to be the inspiration for the name of this group and which points to the group’s aesthetic. The resulting music, although stemming from Zingaro’s bow, so to speak, shares more affinities with the sound artists associated with the “lowercase” tag. The violinist’s personality has been obliterated (a lesson in humility?), so has the character of his instrument: Except for a couple of notes and figures escaped in “Segment 2,” nothing here could allow the listener to identify the source. So listeners are left with fragile sonic textures: delicate lace filled with intentional holes (silences) and made of recycled material. Six computers (and their operators Carlos Santos, João Castro Pinto, Miguel Carvalhais, Nuno Moita, Pedro Lourenco, and Paulo Raposo) rarely make this little noise. The music is elegant and challenging, of course, but it remains somehow distant, except in “Segment 3,” where individual contributions begin to merge into a fulfilling whole. An interesting exercise, Permute does not transcend its exercise nature.”