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Perispirit
As Perispirit, Ricardo Donoso and Luke Moldof craft fantastically dense compositions. Like many fans of experimental music in Boston, I have been consistenly blown away by their live sets. Recently I had the chance to discuss their work with them.
We both had our own musical identities prior to playing with each other. The sound is a result of the meeting of our musical similarities and the opposition of our musical differences. From playing together certain characteristics were naturally emphasized. They included longer form pieces, mixture of tonal and non-tonal elements, and attention to dynamic flow.
The sound draws from our other musical projects and influences them as well.
The usage of a drone seems to naturally run through much of our work. There was a conscious decision to use drones but to fuck with them by adding contrasting textures and conscious tonal elements. Duration is something we’re very conscious of; we are working on shorter pieces as well longer extended lengths.
Everything is composed. There’s no improvisation.
When performing live I do not modify any of Luke’s sounds. I use location recordings, contact mics and synthesizers all manipulated in real time. These elements are usually fed into the laptop which is running Abelton Live and other DSP software.
I use some oscillator boxes, tapes, and contact mics. I approach the guitar as any other sound source that can be processed. It can produce tones and produce noise. That being said, I guess the guitar is at the foundation of pretty much everything that I do in the group.
In the past the live setup and recording setup were exactly the same because all the previous recorded material was recorded live in one take. Now we’ve been using the recording process as a tool for our compositions; taking advantage of all aspects of fidelity control and the opportunities the studio presents to us with post production playing a big part.
Michael Gira would have been the most interesting person to share a bill with but that didn’t end up happening.
There is another tape that is almost finished. After that, there will be a split LP with Brendan Murray.
One of the most thriving in the world, a very rich and exciting landscape to be a part of and one of very high standards. There is something for everyone here.
We are planning on doing a small tour in the winter as well as few local New England dates before the summer is out.
-- Howard Martin (11 August, 2009)
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