críticas

Commentary for 7-14-07
I started this show about 15 minutes early, giving the previous host enough time to clock back in at his job– see My radio station has very committed DJs! Anyhow, I decided to put some of Agusti Martinez's solo album "Are Spirits What I Hear" on. This is a very solid release from Etude Records, and certainly one to grow on. Martinez's solo saxophone explorations don't give up their secrets in the first few listens; instead, he makes shadowy constructs– real enough until you try to ge …
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El disco "Are spirits what I hear? " dentro de los 2.500 mejores discos de jazz de la historia según la Federation of American Musicians,Singers and Performing Artists

Seleccionado en la revista Cuadernos de Jazz como uno de los mejores discos del 2007 .

"ARE SPIRITS WHAT I HEAR?" elegido uno de los 100 mejores discos del jazz catalán por la revista JAÇ.

Apesar de ter nascido em 1960 e de ter um passado considerável na música (fez parte de várias bandas de jazz), Are Spirits What I Hear? é o disco de estreia do músico avant-garde Agustí Martinez, catalão de nascença. A editora Etude, de Barcelona, não exitou sequer em lançer mais um OVNI para o panorama musical espanhol. Are Spirits What I Hear? é um conjunto de composições para o saxofone alto sem mais convidados, sem mais instrumentos, sem sequer a utilização de overdubs. São dez paisagens monocromáticas mas provocadoras de sensações distintas. O saxofone é o maior e único personagem num disco onde Agustí Martínez aproveita para explorar diferentes técnicas e abordagens ao instrumento. O catalão explora também abordagens emocionais distintas: do calmo ao explosivo, do sereno ao tenso, do belo ao feio pode ser apenas um segundo. Há de facto ruídos que não associaríamos ao saxofone utilizado de forma habitual (o tema “Are Spirits What I Hear?” é exemplo disso), mas tudo parece surgir da relação com o saxofone, da sua livre exploração. É ele o centro das atenções. É ele que guia este disco pela escuridão e, em ultima instância, pela solidão.-

André Gomes (BODYSPACE)

I really don’t know what Agusti Martinez hears, but for me, spirits are not exactly my first association with this album. Except maybe, if they come in the context of being “in good spirits” or something of the like, which, considering the opaque and apparitional character of the black and white booklet, does however not seem to be the issue here. And still, dispite its somewhat bleak aesthetics, this is a warm collection of multicoloured solo compositions for Alto Saxophone. On my mind’s eye, the summer’s what I see.It is obvious that some people will have initial reservations about the concept of this disc. Admittedly, listening to one man play his instrument for 50 minutes may at first seem like a pretty hard job. But then again, Martinez plays it like noone else. Using the entire body of his Sax, he produces hissings, heavy breathings, stortorous noises, airy warblers, beatings and knockings, energetic one-tone meditations, abrupt fountains of tones and rapid melodic lines, walls of sound and open spaces and even throws in the occasional shout. As he points out himself, “Do I hear...” is not interested in virtuoso fingerpickings, but cares more for creating polyphonics made up of concrete and indeterminate elements – and truly, in the spacey and stretched-out middle section of the work, the original (or rather: well-known) timbral qualities of the Saxophone get lost in wave upon wave of fragmented clicks and rhythmic emissions of air. It is almost as if the Catalan composer has his mind set on deconstructing his instrument into microscopic parts, using each building block as a new source of aural material. But right before everything falls apart, he picks up on the intense opening and delivers some of the most sharp-edged and precipitiously majestic horn blows, dividing the sea like a giant oceanliner on a cloudless sky. The first release by Etude Records, Mike Hansen’s “At Every Point” was well-constructed and intruigingly asbtract, but with this fire-breathing set of pure electricity they distinguish themselves as one of the new labels to watch.Martinez prefers the heat and the sweat above sugar-coated sweetness, but at the very end, he dives into a dreamy lullaby, a yearning and longing lyrical fantasy of a mere fifty second, which brings the album to a sensous close. I could listen to this man play forever.-

Tobias Fisher (TOKAFI)

Agusti Martinez is a Spanish improviser specializing in solo saxophone improvisations such as the ones collected on Are Spirits What I Hear (Etude, 2007). The album's broad repertory of techniques shows the distance that has been traveled between Anthony Braxton's original intuitions and the post-noise generation of the 2000s. -

Piero Scaruffi (SCARUFFI.COM)

Agustí Martinez is a saxophone player from Barcelona who grew up in several chamber orchestras and jazz bands, then began to perform solo in the mid-nineties. This is his first release, a very good one. The initial "Serie B (for Scelsi)" is a one-note theme alternated with lyricism spotted by irony and desperation, a firm statement of intents under any circumstance. "For Pau" nears certain areas of John Butcher's work, but instantly runs away from the dangers of classification, becoming infectiously multicoloured and rhythmically unpredictable; Martinez is a player that loves silences and pauses, which deepen the meaning of every note he plays. Even the occurrence of (by now commonly used) lingual-and-salival spurts is more welcomed than accepted. In "Meeting", voice is added to augment and expand the palette; sharp outbursts and membrane-carving harmonics precede a whistling anti-song whose body is boned by additional glottolalia. Indeed, Martinez's personal approach makes him different from most saxophonists, essentially due to a more pronounced rhythmic presence (check "Cross-Light" for reference). "Moc and Caniche (to Paula)" is the most rage-and-enthusiasm act, where smoothness and elegance are thrown into a pot of dense articulation and sulphuric straightforwardness; the result is probably the best in terms of compositional interest. "Che Collons!" - a title that makes me suspect that Martinez knows Italian idiomatic expressions quite well - is a long improvisation whose balance of collateral significance, serene melodicism and disturbed spontaneousness is probably the best summary of everything that Agustí is able to conjure up from his right mind. Instead, "Tic" allows him to mix bubbles and rainbows in a metamorphosis of technical prowess, as effervescent scalar runs collapse all at once, delivering the instruments from jazz impediments. The title track is based on the tube-ish sound of the air, things we heard in a thousand records of the genre, but executed with precision and musicality by the Catalan. Overall, this album is permeated by an evident mastery of spacing and timing that renders the listening an extremely pleasing experience any time. -

Touching Extremes. JUNE 2007

Agustí Martinez is a saxophone player from Barcelona who grew up in several chamber orchestras and jazz bands, then began to perform solo in the mid-nineties. This is his first release, a very good one. The initial "Serie B (for Scelsi)" is a one-note theme alternated with lyricism spotted by irony and desperation, a firm statement of intents under any circumstance. "For Pau" nears certain areas of John Butcher's work, but instantly runs away from the dangers of classification, becoming infectiously multicoloured and rhythmically unpredictable; Martinez is a player that loves silences and pauses, which deepen the meaning of every note he plays. Even the occurrence of (by now commonly used) lingual-and-salival spurts is more welcomed than accepted. In "Meeting", voice is added to augment and expand the palette; sharp outbursts and membrane-carving harmonics precede a whistling anti-song whose body is boned by additional glottolalia. Indeed, Martinez's personal approach makes him different from most saxophonists, essentially due to a more pronounced rhythmic presence (check "Cross-Light" for reference). "Moc and Caniche (to Paula)" is the most rage-and-enthusiasm act, where smoothness and elegance are thrown into a pot of dense articulation and sulphuric straightforwardness; the result is probably the best in terms of compositional interest. "Che Collons!" - a title that makes me suspect that Martinez knows Italian idiomatic expressions quite well - is a long improvisation whose balance of collateral significance, serene melodicism and disturbed spontaneousness is probably the best summary of everything that Agustí is able to conjure up from his right mind. Instead, "Tic" allows him to mix bubbles and rainbows in a metamorphosis of technical prowess, as effervescent scalar runs collapse all at once, delivering the instruments from jazz impediments. The title track is based on the tube-ish sound of the air, things we heard in a thousand records of the genre, but executed with precision and musicality by the Catalan. Overall, this album is permeated by an evident mastery of spacing and timing that renders the listening an extremely pleasing experience any time.
All reviews by Massimo Ricci.

La soledad del corredor de fondo de la que habla en las notas interiores ejemplifica el sonido de este disco. Se trata, y lo consigue, de explorar las posibilidades del sonido y de su saxo, pero no como un ensayo puramente técnico y carente de alma, sino como una celebración del instrumento y sus posibilidades como una oportunidad para jugar y explorar a través de los rincones del sonido por medio del instrumento. Se trata de jugar con las llaves, con la caña, con el propio Agustí (con su respiración, con su fraseo, con la vibración) como una prolongación del instrumento. De jugar con la propia estructura del sonido, con sus silencios. Se trata en definitiva de cómo esculpir el sonido a través del saxo alto, de cómo expresar multitud de emociones.

Hay espacio para todo: lirismo y belleza como en la última pieza, la breve “Island Lala”, aunque en su mayor parte las piezas contienen juegos de vibración, juegos con la caña para generar un sonido percutido, a veces sutil, a veces ostentoso, manipulación de la duración y la emisión del aire para conseguir que el saxo suene como feedback eléctrico, breves estallidos free, racimos de notas aisladas, microscópicos clusters, gemidos y gritos a través del saxo como explorador privilegiado de un apasionante viaje a través del sonido.

Angel María García Martiartu

  TOMAJAZZ

Cuadernos de Jazz

DOUBTS OF THE REASON

Entrevista en:

http://www.tomajazz.com/perfiles/martinez_agusti_2010.html

La soledad de Agustí Martínez a la hora de hacer este disco se ve acrecentada por el simple hecho de hacerlo aquí, en nuestro país. No se trata tanto de si es bueno o malo como de que si trabajara y grabara en otro sitio, las posibilidades que tendría para desarrollar su música serían mucho mayores y, por descontado no hubiera tenido que autoeditarse. Doubts of the reason es una continuación temática i estética de su anterior Are spirit what I hear?. Sigue explorando las posibilidades acústicas del saxo alto (las cosas que pasan dentro de él, como dice) y profundizando en su personal estética musical, conformada tanto por elementos y formas del jazz y de la improvisación, como de la música contemporánea. Lo que aporta Martínez en este contexto es trabajo y rigor, cosas que desarrolla en soledad, tal vez, también, porque ese siempre ha sido el sino de la música de vanguardia. Y él es un representante extraordinario de ésta.

Germán Lázaro

Cuadernos de Jazz