A Closer Listen
Imagine you are on an island: an imaginary island comprised of pieces of all the islands you’ve visited and dreamt of visiting. This is the vision created by Impressões de Várias Ilhas, the third is a triptych of island-themed albums from Gonçalo F. Cardoso, but the first to cover a region (Macaronésia) rather than a single location. The LP is part reality, part fantasy, casting a net across the Azores, Cape Verde and Canary Islands, folding in processing and new instruments, casting a summer-like spell.
The set begins and ends with field recordings, but travels far in-between, like the reverie of imagined travel. Everything seems idyllic; no mosquitoes, no traffic and no tourists (not even ourselves!). The innate beauty of land and shore is brought to remarkable life, even if the narrative is semi-fictional.
As soon as one hears the crashing waves, one is transported to one’s own island; as the liner notes declare, “the same sea (is) crashing in on different lands.” Thunder seems to mingle with the surf, the power above matching the power below. And then the music – kind, gentle, ambient, dueting with sand pebbles and brine shrimp. Soon the focus will shift from São Vicente (St. Vincent) to La Gomera, but the observer (who is also the musician) stays the same, which tilts the impressões to a single, unified perspective. “Pardelas – Duet” brings the interplay between human and nature to the fore, as one can hear the contributions of each, albeit briefly.
The identifiable touches are the most endearing. beginning with “Rãs em Xoxo” (“Frogs in Xoxo”), which also contains a fair amount of rain. But while a vacationer might consider this a rainout, the listener regards it as a gift: a window into another ecosystem. The first voices surface in “El Chat Gracioso,” and everyone sounds happy as the meal is being prepared. Does it matter which island we are on? Could it be our own? Wind chimes (or sea bells) and static dance together in “A Lagoa do Combro,” looping like a memory. By the time the waves return (“Piedras Húmedas en Castro” / “Wet Stones in Castro”), one has grown accustomed to the non-linear style of the recording.
Impressões de Várias Ilhas was never intended to reflect how Macaronésia sounds as much as how it feels. The album produces a vast feeling of peace, a surrender to time and tide, snapping back to reality in its amusing coda, “O Peixe tá Congelado” (“The Fish Is Frozen”), glowing with the sound of laughter and the comfort of home. (Richard Allen)
Wed Jul 16 00:01:21 GMT 2025