Clocks & Clouds by Clocks & Clouds

“...The name seems to be an invitation to explore identities within the music, at once highlighting certain predictabilities of pitch and linearity as well as the openness of the exchange and the possibilities of new interactions. It’s a band that listens very closely to one another, often building their collective improvisations out of an assemblage of repeated short rhythmic phrases (clocks?) that overlap and create complex webs of sound (clouds) in which each voice maintains its individuality and its exibility.
Trumpeter Vicente is a signi cant emerging talent, a brassy, forceful trumpeter with a quick mind who often provides a linear focus around which this music assembles itself, elsewhere using the trumpet to create an expressive column of air, referencing the mut- ed timbres of the tradition and ricocheting across that inviting chaos of disparate clocks that Pinheiro, Faustino and Franco provide in such joyously playful abundance...”
Stuart Broomer / Point of Departure

“...They not only move as one, and sound as one, but the music has this inherent emotional beauty that is not a sought effect, but an integral quality of these artists’ skills, yet one that can only appear through interplay with like-minded artists having the same skills, the result of their love for sound and music, and that love, that is far beyond demonstrating skills, or virtuoso pyrotechnics, is probably the core essence of ‘it’, this mysterious marrow of musical magic, this enigmatic essence of expressive aesthetics, this brilliant expansiveness of breathtaking intimacy...”
Stef Gijssels / Free Jazz Blog


“...this is a free improv record that has some muscle.Vincente does a nice job expressing himself through both traditional and ex- tended techniques, with the open horn and with a mute. Pinheiro sounds like two piano players at times, exploring the extremes of both the lower and upper registers of his instrument...”
Craig Premo / Improvised Blog

“...O ouvinte é de imediato levado a atentar mais nas interacções e nos jogos inter-individuais, sendo isso, precisamente, o que mais importa num contexto de música improvisada. Tudo o que se ouve neste disco é espontaneamente composto no momento da execução, mas esta opção metodológica não chega a ganhar um cunho estético. A estética abraçada é, muito claramente, a do jazz. Nesse aspecto, há coincidências com as fórmulas do free jazz, mas di cilmente poderíamos identi car como tal o que aqui vem...”
Rui Eduardo Paes / jazz.pt

“...Trazendo elementos do free jazz e da free impro, Clocks and Clouds apresenta um som contemporâneo de grande vigor imagéti- co, em que o jogo improvisativo do conjunto é o que mais importa: mesmo quando o trompete parece estar em primeiro (como em “Strangely Addictive”) é impossível os ouvidos não serem captados pelo dedilhado de Pinheiro ou ignorar o vigor do baixo de Faustino....”
Fabrício Vieira / Free Form Free Jazz

Rodrigo Pinheiro is a pianist, improviser and composer from Lisboa, Portugal.

With an intuitive approach to improvisation and exploration of the piano timbres, using both classical and extensive techniques, makes his music energic, polyrhythmic and full of contrasts.

He’s been active on the free improvisation scene playing in projects like RED trio, Clocks & Clouds, earnear and solo.

rodrigo-pinheiro.com