Alfredo Costa Monteiro

Spanish-based multimedia artist Alfredo Costa Monteiro (Portugal, 1964) debuted with a personal take on musique concrete on Rubber Music (Hazard, 1999), containing 15 brief vignettes for rubber, Les Silences De La BnF (Labofar, 1999), Paper Music (Hazard, 2001) for manipulated sounds of paper. Small Damage Under Appearance (july 2002 - Thin Ice, 2002) began a collaboration with Margarida Garcia (and Manuel Mota), while Atolon (october 2003 - Rossbin, 2003) began an even more prolific collaboration with Ferran Fages and Ruth Barberan that continued with Atami (october 2002 - Hibari, 2003) with Taku Unami, Masahiko Okura and Masafumi Ezaki besides Fages and Barberan. After Rumeur (march 2003 - Creative Sources, 2004), containing five untitled tracks for solo accordion, a tribute of sorts to Pauline Oliveros, Costa-Monteiro resumed the collaborations: Cesura (july 2003) with Margarida Garcia and Ernesto Rodrigues, Aerea (Creative Sources, 2005) with Ruth Barberan, Istmo (Creative Sources, 2005) with Fages and Barberan, Octante (july 2003 - L'Innomable, 2005), three pieces with Fages, Barberan and Margarita Garcia, Semisferi (Esquilo, 2006) with Fages and Barberan, Ductile (august 2007) for paper and microphones with Pascal Battus, etc.

I Treni Inerti (Monteiro on accordion, Ruth Barberan on trumpet, Matt Davis on trumpet) have recorded: Ura (july 2002) and Aerea (2005).

Costa-Monteiro began a series of solo recordings with Stylt (july 2004 - Absurd, 2005), four pieces for pickups and turntable, the 24-minute suite Z = 78 (Audiobot, 2006) for pickups and turntable, the 21-minute Allotropie (Bourbaki, 2007), his second composition for paper (recorded in 2005), and Anatomy Of Inner Place (Monotype, 2007), a recording of unaltered "domestic sounds".

Neumatica is the duo of Pablo Rega (homemade electronic devices) and Alfredo Costa Monteiro (pick-ups on turntable), documented on Alud (Creative Sources).

Entirely derived from processing his own voice, Epicycle (Etude, 2008), perhaps his first full-fledged solo recording, is one long symphony of digital music that seems to mix techniques of "deep listening" (long slowly-evolving drones) and of musique concrete (bursts of abstract sound). After about 18 minutes the recording seems to catch fire, turning into a maelstrom of hisses and then delving into a black hole. From here it wanders into a desolate icy low-entropy soundscape.

Centre of Mass (june 2008) is a lengthy a solo piece.

Aura (Etude, 2010) is a composition for percussion instruments played by Pilar Subira.

Cinq Bruissements (No Fun, 2011), recorded in december 2006, was his second solo accordion recording after Rumeur, while Cremaster was a collaboration with Ferran Fages (feedback mixing board and pick-ups) documented on Noranta Graus A L'Esquerra, recorded between 2004 and 2008.

A Theory Of Possible Utterance (ZeroMoon, 2011) was recorded in 2007.

Monteiro's compositions included: NYX (november 2008) for pre-recorded turntable sounds with live manipulation, Umbralia (february 2011) for electric organ, etc.

Frele A Vide (Contour Editions, 2011) documents a collaboration between Monteiro and Ben Owen.

Sei Ritornelli (november 2011) debuted the trio 300 Basses with Jonas Kocher and Luca Venitucci.

Fêlure (july 2010) was another collaboration with Pascal Battus for sounds sourced from frictions and «amplified paper».

33 Bays (october 2009) documents a live collaboration between Alfredo Costa Monteiro (on electro-acoustic devices) and Nimrod's bassist Tim Olive (here.

Cremaster, the duo of Alfredo Costa Monteiro (on electro-acoustic devices, speakers and electric guitar) and Ferran Fages (on feedback mixing board and electro-acoustic devices) added violinist Angharad Davies for Pluie Fine (july 2012).

Um Em Um (november 2014) was scored for accordion and found objects.

The Cremaster duo, i.e. Ferran Fages (feedback mixing board, electroacoustic devices) and Alfredo Costa Monteiro (objects on electric guitar, electroacoustic devices), accompanied by pianist Sophie Agnel, recorded between 2009 and 2011 the two tracks of Isotopic.