Nuno Canavarro: #9

From "Plux Quba" (Ama Romanta, 1988 / Moikai, 1998)

Slipping out of Portugal in 1987 and into the hands of young German musicians shortly thereafter, Canavarro's strange and beautiful, limited edition LP was massively influential on esoteric electronica. It represented a set of alternative musical realities from which the forms and facets of certain inexpressible ideas could finally be drawn: from the digitally fissured glasswork of Oval to the liquid systems-music soundscapes of Microstoria to Mouse on Mars's euphoric mix of mirthful melody and muscular rhythms. Using only modest instrumentation (electronics, melodica, polymoog, and tapes) Canavarro created a miraculously homespun, dreamlike work from music-box glitterings and geometrically cleaved voices. As clearly influenced (particularly by the crepitant involuntary-speech and polymoog extrapolations of Robert Ashley's 1979 work Automatic Writing) as it is influential, the now-unearthed Plux Quba nonetheless remains a captivating sonic mystery. One can only guess how it will continue to work its magic on future generations. --Gil Gershman