Sounds from underground/File N°017

we passed a week with few musical proposes on B-Rush, but here it comes a Brazilian project <<ESMECTATONS>>. more I'm going across the new releases of musical underground more I think that the two most interesting countries at the moment are Brazil and Argentina. Who knows, maybe it's where we can find the real underground scene right now. Just try to think about another band I posted here some time ago - Douglas Feto Alado - that by now produced just two track but they are both sublime. I ensure you that there is much more bands based in Brazil or Argentina that are worthwhile, hope I could write about soon.
But let's come back to our guest. Music of ESMECTATONS is crazy, is fresh, and it's surely a tasty dish of sounds. There are elements of jazz, but much more as a composition approach than as an aesthetic. Sounds are weird, original and unconventional. Hope you'll enjoy it!


0. name of the band
ESMECTATONS (L. Borgia Rossetti's main project)

1. where are you from? 

Brasil. I'm from São Paulo, and I started recording there when I was still pretty young. But I find the definitive supporting crew here in Joinville (Santa Catarina), hometown of bands such as the Flesh Grinder, Os Legais (Gurcius Gewdner) and also, some editions of the international underground event Splatter Night. 

2. what kind of instruments/equipment you use? 
For a basic answer, I play guitar, bass, drums, saxes and other brass elements, electronics, key/piano/synth, and I try to use all other possible things, including non conventional instruments, I mean, I'm always carrying with me a tape or any record device in my pocket to capture noises and stuff I heard. That's why the audio quality of my recordings are quite irregular. There are tracks I recorded at studio, and mixed with live material and then I needed to add an instrument I don't have here so I went to a music store with a recorder pretending I was just trying the instrument but I was actually recording an important part of my suite.

3. what do you think about the music context nowadays and how you place yourself in? do you feel a part of any scene? 

We are living the best age for underground music. If you like to go deep you can find whatever you want online, and from the further lands. The latest releases (and the upcoming albums) are clearly current references to Zolo, Jazzcore, Concrète and Rock In Opposition culture. I have been recording since 1999 as Esmectatons but depression kept me locked, I only had energy to start uploading my work last year (2015). So, I wasn't listed into Vanguarda Paulista or the beautiful Joinville local scene when it was somehow active. Unfortunatelly the avant-garde and unusual art disappeared from this town, leaving only the close minded metalheads and a few jazz snobs. I'm ressucting the experimentalism all alone, promoting festivals and stuff. The Esmectatons discography run through different scenes, so we hit different kind of fans. Just like Zappa and Zorn, I've recorded all sort of different stuff, like Powerelectronics, Zeuhl, Circus Music, Eastern, Bossa, Krautrock, Electroacoustic, Noise, Children Music, Post-Punk, Jazz, Folk, Extreme Metal, Collage, Progressive Rock, Hip-Hop and Trip-Hop, Ambient, Ska, Classical, Shoegaze, Psychobilly, Dub, DSBM, Surf, Industrial, R&B... But always sounding avant-garde.

4. which is your method of composition? 

I'm always writing music in my mind. It's an old thing, an obsession nearly autism (I was wrong diagnosed aspergers during childhood).

5. how is your recording approach? do you use some particular record technique? 

Yes, I try unusual recording techniques as xenochrony. 

6. do you play live? how public react to your music? 

I refused to play live as Esmectatons for years. So we played as The Night Shift Elephants, Turtopsy, Porcaria, Glory Holes, and other titles. Thinking about a month spent in USA, where I played at Vegas, Los Angeles and San Francisco, I decided to leave the anonimity behind. If the event is unexpected, the crowd is unexpected. But we have some followers and fans, they don't miss a show. Once we played at an anime event. The public was kinda "what's happening there?".

7. Genesis P-Orridge said "Our records were documents of attitudes and experiences and observations by us and other determinedly individual outsiders. Fashion was an enemy, style irrelevant.". What do your records represent to you? 

My records are my history. They are documents of experiences of course. There are tracks I hate because they remind me of things I would better forget. When you write or improvise, you are putting out part of you, of your mood and momentary feelings. First time I tried suicide I was 7 years old. There are even noises and things I recorded after suicide attempts overdubbed in my music. My psychiatrist told me without my music I would be stucked in inertia and give up of everything. That's it. My music is the way I have to talk to the world and show gratitude to God's creation of a variety of sounds and colors.