A Renaissance Epic Poem, Sci-fi And Folk Music Inspire Vicente Hansen Atria On Album 'Orlando Furioso'

Composer and drummer Vicente Hansen Atria has announced the release of his debut LP as a bandleader on Orlando Furioso, coming out September 9th via Aguirre Records.

Self-described as an "alien chamber folk music" ensemble, the group features exciting young players David Acevedo (trumpet), Andrew Boudreau (keyboards), Daniel Hass (cello), David Leon (woodwinds), Alec Goldfarb (guitar), Vicente Hansen Atria (drums, compositions), Simón Willson (double bass), and Chilean pop-folk singer Niña Tormenta (vocals on the track "En Tornasol").

It is a septet project that attempts to reimagine existing and unrelated folk traditions in an estranged and otherworldly context, exploring the liminal space of stylistic contradiction. The unique instrumentation pulls in multiple directions, towards the worlds that the instruments belong to. The juxtaposition of these contexts suspends the listener in an uncanny, post-stylistic space.

"The title of the project is based on the 1516 epic poem by Ludovico Ariosto," says Hansen Atria. "One of the most notable images of the poem is that of the main character traveling to the moon to find his sanity. The whole cycle has a cartographic approach, attempting to document the various hypothetical musics that Orlando could have encountered in his travels. In particular, the unlikely inclusion in a Renaissance epic of the science fiction trope of interplanetary travel serves as a literary equivalent and starting point for my recreation and juxtaposition of musical worlds."

With the opening phrase of "En Tornasol," an unseen barrier melts away to reveal an alien landscape.

Early European composers felt that their work reflected in its structure the divine nature of the material world. Via tuning, form, and contrapuntal alchemy, these musicians sought to illuminate and edify the complex and perfect order of existence. The music recorded here also reflects the contours of an ordered world, but it is no place any of us has ever visited. By assembling far flung building blocks from the detritus of a 21st-century musical vocabulary, Orlando Furioso brings the listener into a bizarre new cosmos. The result is deeply expressive music that speaks not with the voice of a narrator or memoirist, but with that of a cartographer.

Like a science-fiction Dante, the listener is taken on a tour of many diverse and colorful provinces of an alien world. Though each composition references its own set of real-world musical locales (from the Andes to Indonesia to Italy to New Orleans), they are bound by stylistic consistency into a coherent, continuous geography. Permeating this world is an uncompromising commitment to microtonal harmony, rhythmic intensity, and an ability to deploy the esoteric (Nicola Vicentino's notorious 31-tone temperament) and the head-smackingly obvious (a surprise djent breakdown) with equal conviction. Though Vicente's compositions are steering the ship, serious recognition is due to all the players on the record for their ability to meet these demands.

Our omnivorous musical diets offer real abundance. They enrich our craft by providing access to limitless approaches from which to choose - more masters to study, traditions to absorb, and techniques to hone than is possible in multiple lifetimes. They can also inflict heavy and often contradictory burdens of influence. When every corner of the map has been charted, it becomes difficult to find a new direction in which to travel. One solution I hope to see more often is the one pursued on this record: breaking down distinct musical worlds into component parts and reassembling them into a language. When completed with precision and with no stone left unturned, the seams between the pieces vanish and the listener is deposited somewhere beautiful and strange, left to assign their sensations meanings of their own. - words by Mat Muntz

Vicente Hansen Atria is a Chilean composer and drummer based in New York. His music riffs on a wide range of idioms, from renaissance dances to Korean sanjo, creating lucid, futuristic sonic worlds. He has written for groups such as the Sun Ra Arkestra, JACK Quartet, Wet Ink Ensemble, Yarn/Wire, TAK Ensemble, International Contemporary Ensemble, Bozzini Quartet, Science Ficta, and Daedalus Quartet.

He is a recipient of an ASCAP Herb Alpert Young Jazz Composer Award (2022), an ACF Create award (2021), The Shed Open Call commission (2019), two Chilean Ministry of Culture Fondo de la Música funds (2022 & 2020), and a finalist for the ASCAP Morton Gould Young Composer Award (2016).

He holds a DMA from Columbia University, where he has studied with Fred Lerdahl, Georg Haas, George Lewis, and Zosha Di Castri. Vicente is currently leading experimental chamber folk septet Orlando Furioso, as well as performing with collaborative trio Family Plan, improvising electronic music with Buen Clima as Tronador, and designing instruments with Mat Muntz for The Vex Collection, an alt-historical ensemble.

Tracklist:

Side A

En Tornasol (4'17'')

Raso, Sarga, Tafetán (11'08'')

Galliard (6'50'')

Side B

Bootstrap Bernie (7'56'')

Anticueca N. 6 (10'25'')

Total length: 41'06''

Credits:

David Acevedo - Trumpet

Andrew Boudreau - Keyboards

Daniel Hass - Cello

David Leon - Woodwinds

Alec Goldfarb - Guitar

Vicente Hansen Atria - Drums, Compositions

Simón Willson - Double Bass

Niña Tormenta - Vocals (track 1)

All tracks composed by Vicente Hansen Atria (Vicente Hansen Music, ASCAP) Text for "En Tornasol" by Violeta Parra

Produced by Vicente Hansen Atria

Recorded by Michael Pérez Cisneros at Big Orange Sheep on October 14th and 15th, 2020 Mixed by Vicente Hansen Atria

Mastered by Eivind Opsvik at Greenwood Underground

Aguirre Records ZORN94

Original artwork by Martín Bruce

Design and Layout by Amanda Hansen

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