Alex Zhang Hungtai + Belaflor

Live music 14€

Thursday 15 October · 21:00

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Concert featuring Alex Zhang Hungtai and Belaflor, presenting recent works and sounds between the experimental and the electronic.

Brief Introduction Alex Zhang Hungtai Return of this old companion of experiences in this city, from another Lisbon, where he lived, befriended and created during a relatively brief passage but which left a mark on his path and which, in his nomadic trajectory since then, has been a stop for spaced-out visits. This time, the appearance takes place at a very prolific moment for the Taiwanese-born musician, with two albums already released this year: 'Dras' on Shelter Press and the double 'Orion/Mother' on American Dreams. Distinct in their genesis and result, they reveal in their singularity two complementary facets for the identity and visions that Hungtai has been projecting in his own name after dropping the Dirty Beaches veil, among solo albums, collaborative records and the composition of soundtracks; the solitary revelation in 'Dras' and the creative communion in 'Orion/Mother'. Capturing the beatific reverberations of the Saint Joseph Oratory in Montreal in 2019, 'Dras' has in the clamor of the saxophone the primordial source for compositions born from those recordings and patiently worked on in the solitude of the 2020 pandemic period. Exploring the resonances and harmonics of the spatial immensity of the basilica, Hungtai dialogues with these spectral apparitions through apparently dissonant melodies, dorian chords and subterranean passages that are like an inner mirror of that involvement, and vice versa. Imagining a kind of band from various improvisations with musicians such as Kwami Winfield or Laura Cocks recorded over previous years, revisited during a particularly harsh winter in New York, 'Orion/Mother' stretches across two records, in what is his most expansive volume to date. Inspired by Butch Morris's improvisation method, Hungtai aligned different recording sessions, populated by percussion, electronics, voices or winds, in pieces composed of different eras, over which he himself improvised clarinet lines, as much akin to ballad-like pain as to timbral exploration, in a whole that mysteriously sustains itself between a certain intangibility and an almost tangible, living sound quality. Nature of this restless spirit. BS ~ Belaflor Belaflor is inspired by sacred art, dissident bodies, and hope. The liberation of the flesh through amplification and electrical circuits. Instrumental, without voice, only sound waves. Between Trás-os-Montes and Coimbra, since 2023. Doors Open 20:30 Prices Ticket - 14€