Track 1
Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg - voice
Pascal Marzan - 10-string microtonal guitar

Track 2
Bill Young - voice
Noel Taylor - clarinet

Track 3
Rodrigo Brandão - voice
João Madeira - double bass

Hands and Tongues explores three pairings of voice plus an instrument. Each of those pairings share a common language, but the accent of each member of the pairs is different. So, one duo is Belgian/French; the second duo is American/British, and the third pairing is Portuguese/Brazilian. The comments made by musicians between ‘takes’ are routinely excised by every recording label, but not in this instance. The results reflect something subtle about national identity. It’s as if we are invited into a third dimension, a room in which we don’t expect to be present—the exact space in which the recordings were made. We even hear the noise of planes passing overhead and other miscellaneous noises. The emphasis is on the relationship between the performers, whose dialogue, over and above the music itself, is about something both intimate and intangible — the dynamics of the way in which each interacts with the other: a meta-dialogue.

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Reviews:

"Hands and Tongues, 3 Meta-Dialogues offers three distinct duos of vocal artists and bold improvisers, each one sharing an intimate yet intangible language but, obviously, quite different. All duos tell something about dialogs between and inside close cultures. You can say that these free improvised meetings suggest meta dialogs.
The first duo features Belgian, Bself-taught vocal artist Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg, who has invented his own poetic vocal artistry and extended techniques, including throat singing, and French guitarist Pascal Marzan who plays on 10-string microtonal guitar. Their 28-minute «Rumeurs Sondées» (rumors probed) was recorded in Osbaldeston Road, Stoke Newington, in February 2023. It is an intuitive and playful, conversational dialog between old friends who share stories, insights and observations.
The second duo is of American vocal artist and actor Bill Young and British, Lisbon-based clarinetist Noel Taylor (who played with the London Improvisers Orchestra). It is called «Something Let Loose There» and it was recorded at Memória in Lisbon in September 2023. It is a subtle and quiet, breathy and ethereal dialog, slowly becoming more lively, with more eccentric nuances and tension (including a chat about the mouthpiece).
The third dialog is of Brazilian rapper-spoken word- vocal artist Rodrigo Brandão and Portugues double bass player João Madeira, who released this album on his label 4DaRecords. Their improvised piece is called «Extrato d’Alma Em Mergulho Sincronizado» (Extract from ’Alma In Synchronized Diving) and was recorded at Memória in Lisbon in September 2023. It is an evocative and passionate dialog that speaks – literally – with captivating, charismatic pathos about mysterious and spiritual experiences." Eyal Hareuveni

"In the first dialogue, "Romeurs sondées", we meet vocalist Jean-Michel Van Schouwburg and guitarist Pascal Marzan, who plays a 10-string microtonal guitar. And it's a dialogue that is interpreted in a freely improvised way, with Van Schouwburg's voice imagining freely with Marzan's guitar like a freewheeling Ralph Towner as a sidekick. The vocals are reminiscent of what the Dutch Jaap Blonk is doing, where the vocals are more like an instrument giving an interesting soliloquy that the guitarist has to relate to. The "conversation" is exciting, but without "ordinary" words, so we can only fantasise about what he is trying to express. But it's exciting and relatively new.
The conversations in the middle of the improvisation are in French, which I have trouble understanding, where they agree on what to do next. But it's not so farli that I don't understand. It's not what they say that's exciting, but how they say it.
The second dialogue, "Something Let Loose There", takes place between vocalist Bill Young and clarinetist Noel Taylor. This is also free improvisation, but different from the first. It opens with long notes in both clarinet and vocals, which almost sound like two clarinets (or two vocalists). Here I feel that it is Taylor and his clarinet that leads the way and sets the "agenda". And it's very quiet throughout. But it gets exciting when Young begins to experiment with his voice and challenge Taylor. And here, too, it becomes a conversation where communication is the important thing, and where a relatively "frisky" vocal challenges the clarinet in an extremely distinctive way. Loops are used on the vocals, so he gains a kind of upper hand over time by operating with multiple voices.
In the third "conversation", "Extrato d'Alma Em Mergulho Sincronizado", we meet vocalist Rodrigo Brandão and João Madeira on bass (which on the cover is called voicebass), but which is a double bass that is (perhaps) treated as if it were a vocalist in the bass department. This conversation is perhaps the most "audience-friendly", and you can easily hear that these are two musicians/sound artists from Portugal. A lot of talking against the excellent bass playing, and heated argumentation in between, which sounds exciting, even though I don't understand a word of what is being spoken/sung. But it's very Portuguese.
Weird? Yes! Special? Yes! Exciting? Very much so, and probably mostly intended for those who are well versed in experimental vocal art, I think. The three dialogues are very much in the Jaap Blonk landscape, or where Danish Randi Pontoppidan is. Perhaps not something you should play (too loudly) when you have friends over, but alone in the writing room it works fine."
Jan Granlie
salt-peanuts.eu/record/hands-tongues/