Unusual music from the Brasilia Laptop Orchestra, on a CD called 10 yEars aLive (PUBLIC EYESORE RECORDS PE150) which draws selected performances from the 10-year history of this combo.
It’s not exactly a “band” in the conventional sense, and though we have a long list of names here the Orchestra has had a fluid line-up under the aegis of its founder Eufrasio Prate; part of the strategy has been to encourage participation from people who wouldn’t normally think of making music, nor call themselves improvisers or anything of this sort. Prate’s come-all-ye approach is to invite both trained and amateur musicians, experimenters, and pretty much anyone who might be curious or open-minded enough to join in. One might also think that this is “laptop music”, but in fact it’s trying to embrace a wide swathe of digital technology and IT, including music generated by algorithms and use of interactive software. Some of the software has been designed by Eufrasio Prate. Perhaps surprisingly, it seems that the webcam or video camera is one of the more important parts of the set-up, and I get the impression that the sound is created by bodily gestures of the hand or arm, rather than simply “playing” a computer, as the Mego guys used to do over 20 years ago. Then there’s the use of chance, and playful game-inspired devices (such as rolling dice) to generate rules for composition and performance; Eufrasio Prate’s intention is to push performers outside of their comfort zone, and part of this is to include elements of unpredictability and rule-breaking. A typical concert – if there was such a thing – of the Brasilia Laptop Orchestra would involve each player controlling their own speaker and their own sound, and no two players in the room would hear the same thing depending on their position in the arena, hinting at radical sound-shifting strategies taking place in real time. Not content with all this, Brasilia Laptop Orchestra carry a message of hope for all mankind – in creating their on-stage environments, they’re aiming at an “ecosophic” condition that fosters a respect for the world’s ecology, and proposes a model of social inclusion too.
Well, full marks for the ideas – and there’s no doubting the sincerity of Eufrasio Prate with his well-meaning strategies for fomenting a species of controlled chaos. Bonus points too for allowing non-musicians into the charmed circle and achieving a strong inclusivity balance. But the actual music is less than satisfactory; disorganised, flat, a jumble of unexciting and meaningless sounds. A lot of the techniques and ideas here have already been successfully used elsewhere; for instance, the Music In Movement Electronic Orchestra (MIMEO) active since 1998, many of the electro-acoustic improvisers represented on the Erstwhile or Mikroton labels, and the Great International Audio Streaming Orchestra, hi-jacking the channels of the internet since 2012. For all the claims that are being made in the press release here, one was hoping for music and sound that was more engaging, that activates the mind, and inspires us towards action. Conversely, when faced with this soggy morass of half-hearted samples and noise, one starts to feel little more than fatigue and ennui.
Prates and his collaborators have moved on from Brasilia Laptop Orchestra now, and are more involved in live streaming events and the use of Artificial Intelligence; both hot topics, for sure, but they are also very fashionable trends, the latter driven by some very questionable motives. I would prefer to see art that challenges the assumptions behind these trends, rather than blindly embrace whatever new technology is in the air. From 7th October 2022.