phoneuma by thomas rohrer & philip somervell

Thomas Rohrer and Philip Somervell started meeting weekly to work, experiment and improvise with sound in 2014. The pair first met in London in 2008 for a one-off trio performance with trumpeter Jamie Coleman at Cafe OTO (an account of which can be found here:http://www.thewatchfulear.com/?p=1215). 'Phoneuma' is their 3rd release. Philip and Thomas can also be heard alongside other mainstays of the São Paulo experimental scene on Rob Mazurek’s 'Chants and Corners' album (Cleanfeed, 2017).

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Recording of a live concert held at the Associação Cachuera on 18th March 2018, São Paulo. The bill also featured a silent improvised dance piece by Marina Tenorio.

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The sounds produced on the pipe organ, which are projected from several different parts of the instrument, as well as the various beating patterns and psychoacoustic phenomena occurring between the different ranks of pipes and either saxophone, amplified rabeca or feedback, made the location of the listener in the room a lot more significant. Turning one’s head might result in hearing the sounds differently.

Listening back, with the volume up nice and high, we felt this recording went a fair way in capturing these details.

Perhaps partly because of the changing sounds in the space and having seen Marina’s piece just before, Quim, the youngest member of the audience, felt the need for a more interactive listening experience. His footsteps can occasionally be heard on the recording.