Aires ‘Fantasma’ DD 2015

Aires is a Portuguese musician/sound artist who creates haunting yet awe-inspiring drone. If you visit his label’s bandcamp page you will notice how little has been written about him: you won`t find a detailed biography, just some brief lines describing this project as, among other things, a world of illusion where  everything is on a constant transformation.

However, after listening to Fantasma (meaning ‘ghost’ in Portuguese) one gets the feeling that the aforementioned description isn’t really vague – although it might seem like it – and it tells us everything we must know before embarking on this journey of eerie, mysterious sounds.  These songs (which all share the title Fantasma and are sequentially numbered) have a majestic dreamlike quality, allowing us to discover different worlds and visualise images in our mind. Often when we dream, the narrative follows nonlinear structures, but what we see and feel – consciously or not – can still be beautiful. The same thing happens with this EP: the three pieces are sometimes strange, but they have a poetic and even spiritual nature.

In a way – and I realize this might sound odd – but If you’re familiar with legendary Swedish filmmaker Ingmar Bergman, you will think that listening to this is a bit like watching one of his movies, as we feel we’re slowly entering a world of melancholic beauty and delicate atmospheres that words can barely describe.

It is also worth noting that this work is different from a recent project he developed with his friend Rui P. Andrade – a split entitled Pânico -Ambiente.  While that collaboration was about the deconstruction of sounds, this one seems to be building towards something, with Aires being a sort of architect of drone and experimental electronic music.  Maybe the artist that comes to mind more frequently when we listen to his music is Tim Hecker:  both are ambitious and the manner in which they explore the possibilities of sonic creation is somewhat similar. However, I`d say the greatest compliment I can give Aires is that I always wanted to go back to the astonishing universe this EP invited me to meet, never growing tired of the details I would notice every time I went back to it. When an artist is able to evoke such strong emotional responses, there is something truly special there.

Label: Brutal Panda Records
Band Links: Facebook | Bandcamp

Scribed by: Jorge Miguel