Sunday, December 11, 2011

Tiago Duarte's Favourite Musical Moment of 2011

Tiago Duarte, the man behind Cooler than Cucumbers Records is the man responsible for the amazing compilations Salade de Concombres vol. 1. I asked him about his musical highlight of the year, and here's what he shared with us: 
 
My favorite musical moment of the year has to be the show by Gaspar Claus & Pedro Soler in late april at the french venue, La Gaieté Lyrique. I was impatient that day as Gaspar Claus is for me one of the most impressive musicians I know. He is a cello virtuoso and plays quite like nobody else does, his style ranges from very cinematico-dramatic moments to very experimental noisy sounds that get into you to never leave. The first time I heard about him was in mid-2010 when he played along Kazuki Tomokawa, the screaming philosopher, a japanese guitarist singer, for the Blogotheque video about Kazuki. I was very much impressed by the way Gaspar handled his instrument, lying on the ground he would reach heights of sonic madness alongside Kazuki, both battling for who will reach the highest music point.
So when I heard that Gaspar would play a show in Paris alongside his father, Pedro Soler, a famous flamenco player, I couldn't not resist going there. It certainly was one of the most beautiful shows I've seen in my life and I can only think of one that could top it : Portishead. Not only the music was beautiful, but the relationship between the two and how they look at each other before each mesure is something I hadn't since before. They would play the songs they had together and then play some solo parts, for his solo, Gaspar choose the more experimental aproach, he played for 5 minutes and seemed like he was somewhere else the whole time, as if he had given his body to a spirit, most of the time, he didn't even played with his cords, he played with the wood of his instrument. Everything was very sensual as he was holding is cello like a woman, caressing it, making it rumble and scream under his directions. Beautiful and at the end of his solo part, his father got up and went for a hug with him.

Then, there was love.
 

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