"Three-Body Problem" is @c’s sixteenth full-length album. It started as a soundtrack for the puppet theatre play "Agapornis", premièred by the Teatro de Marionetas do Porto in October 2014, and inspired in the life and works of Anaïs Nin. "Three-Body Problem" was (re)composed after the première of "Agapornis", therefore it is not its soundtrack, but it is intimately intertwined with it, resulting from two sequential processes of composition.
The first of these lead to the play’s soundtrack. It was developed with the company during rehearsals and creative work sessions. Built to a script with two female characters (played with puppets) that were two poles over which the soundtrack should be developed, the composition started with an invitation to Angelica V. Salvi (harp) and Susana Santos Silva (trumpet) to record solo parts. These were used as building blocks, as attractors over which 21 pieces grew, almost by aggregation.
The post-première stage of composition was focused on the album. This did not try to recreate the play, but rather to revise and recompose the music, building a related work that would inevitably draw much more than inspiration from the play. In "Agapornis", a third character with several spoken lines was played by an actor. In this second process, that symbolic role was enacted by the interventions of João Pais Filipe (cymbals
and bells) and Ricardo Jacinto (cello and electronics), that helped to bring the album to its final form with 9 tracks: http://www.cronicaelectronica.org/?p=111
A third process was developed after the conclusion of the album, with the creation of video works for its tracks by guest artists and directors: Miguel Leal, Rosi Avelar & Nardran Teluric, Nuno Tudela, Cristina Mateus, LIA, André Rangel, Marc Behrens, Rodrigo Carvalho, P.Tudela & M.Carvalhais.
This album goes to the core of @c’s working process that emphasizes collaboration; a process that is highly conceptual and structured, that embraces and searches emergence; a process that is very plastic, treating sound as matter to be shaped and modelled and from which to grow the pieces; a process that is encompassing and dynamic, developed between studio, stage, rehearsals, performance, audiovisuals, installations, and other activities.
All pieces composed by @c (P. Tudela & M. Carvalhais) in 2014-2016, from the original soundtrack to "Agapornis", by Teatro de Marionetas do Porto, premièred in October 2014. Featuring Angelica V. Salvi (harp in 113, 115, 117-119), Susana Santos Silva (trumpet in 111-114, 116, 118), João Pais Filipe (gongs & bells in 112), Ricardo Jacinto (cello & electronics in 114, 117), Edgard Fernandes, Rui Queiroz de Matos (voices in 114).
Complete tracklist:
01: Miguel Leal, Bacchanale 111 (07:33)
02: Rosi Avelar & Nardran Teluric, Pace 112 (03:15)
03: Nuno Tudela, Advent 113 (06:39)
04: Cristina Mateus, Sleep 114 (06:14)
05: LIA, Transcendence 115 (05:38)
06: André Rangel, Cage 116 (08:21)
07: Marc Behrens, Prophecy 117 (06:12)
08: Rodrigo Carvalho, Reduction / Reflection 118 (09:07)
09: P.Tudela & M.Carvalhais, Collapse 119 (12:18)
