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Sarnadas is the most inquisitive moniker of João Sarnadas, a transdisciplinary artist working with sound, image, space, and everything in between. Based in Portugal's Porto, Sarnadas is an essential part of the city's cultural output, mostly thanks to his inventive work with arts collective Favela Discos and his cooperative projects (Well, Flamingos, José Pinhal Post-Mortem Experience), and a nationwide renown singer-songwriter with his solo output Coelho Radioactivo. As Sarnadas, the musician focuses his expression on the manipulation of sounds and contexts created through the looping of a simple, homemade synth, which he uses to work new melodic possibilities in seemingly still images.
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2CD
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FAVELA 057CD
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The Hum is the debut opus of Sarnadas, a Portuguese transdisciplinary artist working sound, image, space and everything in between. The four hour-plus long album, set to be released in two parts, is a direct consequence of his work with the disruptive artistic collective Favela Discos. By suspending some protocols but, most importantly, by suspending time itself in a seamless never-ending loop of layered melodies, Sarnadas allows himself to focus on developing new possibilities with the manipulation of the context created, rather than relying on the false necessity of constant output. Over the 15 pieces of deeply moving, bright, but calming music, Sarnadas waives off rigid musical structures to loop, overdub, and erect layers of synth phrases which relate to each other in the enclosed environment of The Hum. The Porto-based musician prompts his search for melodic opulence in the seemingly still soundscape of organic repetitiveness, where the encounter plays as big of a role as controlled randomness and the mismatch of melodies, sounds and textures. Sarnadas's approach to music writing allows details to be generated, rather than forced into music, creating a state of conscious lethargy where dreaming plays an active role on the outcome of sound. Recorded live throughout two days, the two-part album is reflective of Sarnadas's need to suspend time and figure out a new pathos by allowing himself to work endlessly on the single output of choice: a three-oscillator homemade synth constructed by his long-time collaborator Inês Castanheira (Well). This simple instrument, paired with a mixer and pedalboard paraphernalia, freed him to work loops, textures, brightness and chance into a compelling design of organic and mutating spaces. Die-cut cover with two printed inner sleeves and sealed outer plastic sleeve.
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2CD
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FAVELA 058CD
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Sarnadas, a multi-disciplinary artist based in Porto, returns with the second instalment of his drone opus The Hum. Titled The Humm, this second long-play album follows the first record, having resulted from the same two-day, extensive and intensive composing sessions during which the producer created eight hours of layered, ambient music. Sarnadas focused his endeavor on a stripped-down setup comprised of just a homemade synth, a mixer and some effects pedals, generating various layers of sound and manipulating their overlapping and apparently random relationship to create eight pieces of spatial, dreamy music, with ever-changing organic plasticity. The concept behind the double album The Hum lies in the new moniker Sarnadas, also known for his singer-songwriter Coelho Radiactivo persona, or as João Sarnadas, one of Favela collective's spearheads. As Sarnadas, the musician focuses on a more melodic approach to sound, unravelling new possibilities by relating simple elements, shifting over time and space. Drawing inspiration from the idea of cities humming their own tunes, as an expression of all things urban playing in the background, The Hum series describes Porto and Aveiro (Sarnadas's native city) pulsing lives through nuanced drones. Over the first long-play, Sarnadas created a series of bleak ambient pieces, with saturated sounds overwhelming senses as a means to create images surpassing the reality of each city. The Humm, on the other hand, all pieces of music shift from a lucid-dream feeling to a sensation closer to waking up, soberer and graced by dawn, where less abrasive layers allow the interpretation of clearer forms and images. Die-cut cover with two printed inner sleeves and sealed outer plastic sleeve.
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