João Pais Filipe – S/T – CD

João Pais Filipe is not the kind of musician who talks the talk — better yet, the Porto-based artist, who’s also an artisan behind its own and unique drum kit, walked the industrial, jazz and avant-garde walk to the point he found a space yet to be occupied by European scholars and their musical notations. In his one of a kind expression, the percussionist bends musical compositions to the point melodies and harmonies are the outcome of rhythmic relations instead of a tyrannic expression ruling over creation. Filipe designed a new direction in sound, which he calls ethno techno and where he manages constant dualities, between mechanic and organic, loops and repetitions, dancefloor explosions and circular mantras. Playing solo, João Pais Filipe takes on electronic dancefloor structures in a quite idiosyncratic way, channeling through his self-designed, handmade percussion kit each layer and idea, imbuing them with non-industrialized imperfections and rustic textures and setting a new path for the genre.

Released by Lovers & Lollypops, João Pais Filipe‘s first, eponymous full-length is composed by three different pieces inhabited by his near-mechanical rhythmic precision and where he reinterprets techno, house and other dancefloor structures through circular patterns and the unprocessed, natural timbres of his kit. An uncanny experience where musique concrète is reshaped to truly moving musical formats created through his own polyrhythmic compositions and unusual bars, while providing relatable and genuinely emotional tunes.

João Pais Filipe took the machines’ place in order to understand if androids do dream of electric sheep — only to find out they started to with ethno techno.

Lovers & Lollypops

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