W Horn’s sound poetry is made of crackle, soft fire, and dense smoke. An antithesis to the hyper-speed of an age that seems long removed from itself. This anthropological, sonic, and almost metaphysical search leads her to other unusual realities, deposited in the subsoil of the visible. Member of the collective Sthlm Drone Society and participant in a handful of festivals throughout Europe, the Swedish artist stands out as one of the most insular creators of the moment. The raw telluric force, entangled with electric cables and shards of an abandoned construction site, freely illustrated the electo-acoustic narrative Kontrapoetik. A piece that swallowed occultism, folk mythology and classical composition, generating an old new world.

Epistasis appeared months later and was a step into the light. The color of the piano and the roughness of the strings were elements used for an orchestral approach in constant flux by processed field recordings, echoes of lost melodies and suspended metallic shadows. In the same year of 2019 Horn also composed the piece around the Greek tragedy Fedra/Hippolytus, presented at the Royal Dramatic Theatre in Stockholm; and also marked her presence at the Madeira Dig festival alongside Keiji Haino, Nivek or Kali Malone.
Absolute guarantee of catharsis and minimalist emersion are part of the scenario to expect on this visit to Lisbon. NA

There are records that transform. Rosa Pano was perhaps one of those records that transformed 2020, an abrupt year of explosions and implosions. It is in the latter that Pestana operates, in the dynamic of open containment, blazing new trails and visions for the future. But it is in the past that everything seems to emerge. A madrigal, a church bell, a howl; the eternal dichotomy between the sacred and the profane. Pestana approaches the pagan nature, according to a filter of the saturation of humanity and its technological achievements. A recent but already solid heritage of people like Oneohtrix Point Never, James Ferraro or Ben Frost, who distilled the popular sphere into a dystopian and yet effervescent digital alchemy. A utopia made reality.

Filled with memories or suggested impressions, Rosa Pano knew, above all, to present a very strong identity of its author – and its object. A real ascent that takes place, but without ever completely freeing itself from its earthly roots, as its own condition. The fauna and flora summoned here by Luís Pestana are still existences to be verified. The kind we read about in sci-fi books and popular legends: so unreal and yet so familiar. NA