Mécanosphère is a trans-national music/performance art group rooted in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

. Formed in 2003 by French drummer and DIY electronic musician Benjamin Brejon (an ex-student of free jazz percussionist

Sunny Murray James Marcellus Arthur "Sunny" Murray (September 21, 1936 – December 7, 2017) was an American musician, and was one of the pioneers of the free jazz style of drumming. Biography Murray was born in Idabel, Oklahoma, where he was raised by an ...

) and polyglot Portuguese vocalist

Adolfo Luxúria Canibal Adolfo Luxúria Canibal (meaning Adolph Cannibal Lust) is the stage name of Adolfo Morais de Macedo. He was born in 1959 in Luanda, Angola. Canibal is a Portuguese musician and lawyer, known for his vocals in both the Portuguese rock band Mão M ...

, frontman of cult Portuguese rockers

Mão Morta Mão Morta is a Portuguese avant-garde rock band that started its activities in 1985 in Braga. The group's name means "dead hand", based on a traditional Portuguese nursery rhyme. They are generally considered to be one of the most important band ...

, the morphing line-up of Mecanosphere also congregates members of the American

Radon Radon is a chemical element with the symbol Rn and atomic number 86. It is a radioactive, colourless, odourless, tasteless noble gas. It occurs naturally in minute quantities as an intermediate step in the normal radioactive decay chains through ...

Collective, such as tribal percussionist Scott Nydegger and saxophonist

Steve Mackay Steve Mackay (September 25, 1949 – October 10, 2015) was an American tenor saxophonist best known for his membership in the Stooges. His performances are showcased on three songs on the band's second album, ''Fun House'' (1970). The Stooges ...

(of

The Stooges The Stooges, originally billed as the Psychedelic Stooges, also known as Iggy and the Stooges, was an American rock band formed in Ann Arbor, Michigan, in 1967 by singer Iggy Pop, guitarist Ron Asheton, drummer Scott Asheton, and bassist Dave ...

) as well as bassist Henrique Fernandes and drummer Gustavo Costa, all from the experimental scene of

Oporto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

. Since 2005 the electronic multi-instrumentalist Jonathan Saldanha become an active part along with Benjamin Brejon. Mécanosphère combines elements of sonic hip hop, bass-heavy dub, violent noise, collage art, chaos rock and industrial free jazz with a strong textual and old school sound poetry component, claiming authors such as

J. G. Ballard James Graham Ballard (15 November 193019 April 2009) was an English novelist, short story writer, satirist, and essayist known for provocative works of fiction which explored the relations between human psychology, technology, sex, and mass medi ...

Gilles Deleuze Gilles Louis René Deleuze ( , ; 18 January 1925 – 4 November 1995) was a French philosopher who, from the early 1950s until his death in 1995, wrote on philosophy, literature, film, and fine art. His most popular works were the two volu ...

Peter Sloterdijk Peter Sloterdijk (; ; born 26 June 1947) is a German philosopher and cultural theorist. He is a professor of philosophy and media theory at the University of Art and Design Karlsruhe. He co-hosted the German television show ''Im Glashaus: Das Phi ...

Bernard Stiegler Bernard Stiegler (; 1 April 1952 – 5 August 2020) was a French philosopher. He was head of the Institut de recherche et d'innovation (IRI), which he founded in 2006 at the Centre Georges-Pompidou. He was also the founder in 2005 of the politi ...

Velimir Khlebnikov Viktor Vladimirovich Khlebnikov, better known by the pen name Velimir Khlebnikov ( rus, Велими́р Хле́бников, p=vʲɪlʲɪˈmʲir ˈxlʲɛbnʲɪkəf; – 28 June 1922) was a Russian poet and playwright, a central part of th ...

as influences on both the method and the issues of their work. Mécanosphère's battering rhythmic chaos music is something difficult to define. The polyglot text (a constant permutation of French, Portuguese and English) as well as the texture of their sound (several drum kits, electric double bass, electronic percussions, vintage synthesizers, tapes, live loop recorders, dysfunctional sound generators of varying kind) demonstrate the originality of Mécanosphère. Mécanosphère is not a touring band. Each of their rather rare public appearances is a creation of its own and they made clear they consider the live performances unfit for a repetitive touring format. In comparison, Mécanosphère is a rather generous recording factory. Their 2003 self-titled debut album (released on Portuguese Hip Hop label Loop:Recordings) is a straightforward rhythms-bass-voice record. Loosely in the line of early Scorn or

Muslimgauze Muslimgauze was the main musical project of Bryn Jones (17 June 1961 – 14 January 1999), a British ethnic electronica and experimental musician who was influenced by conflicts and history in the Muslim world, often with an emphasis on the Isra ...

’s interpretations of dub and industrial music "mecanosphere" acts. The 2004 "Bailarina" album (Independent Records), explores a more labyrinth-like territory, where heavy bass down tempo breaks, electro-acoustic sounds, hardcore, tribalism, apocalyptic drum and bass and abstract jazz scapes fusion with the deep throat, menacing narrative of Adolfo Luxúria Cannibal. Their third album, "Limb Shop" (released on Raging Planet, Base records, Soopa and Radon in 2006), was produced by Jonathan Uliel Saldanha, moving the sound of the group a step deeper into an abstract landscape of field recordings, brute noise and crepuscular heavy funk and dub. Finally freed from the "track" shape which prevailed on the previous albums, Limb Shop is a 60 minute piece on disfiguration, real and fictional amputation vs. prosthesis and inner-space science fiction turned into sound.

References

External links

* * {{DEFAULTSORT:Mecanosphere Portuguese musical groups Raging Planet artists