ductile

Also on this label is a collaboration between Pascal Battus and Alfredo Costa Monteiro. Both play paper and microphones. ‘Every sound is used here as it was recorded with no processing of effects’, which is hard to believe. Maybe they use the microphones to actually play on the paper surface and there is an amount of amplification used, instead of having the microphones just pick up the sound. The result is definetly more powerful, more noisy than one should expect from the notion of things being made with paper. At times freaking loud, almost in a Merzbow sense of noise, but Battus and Monteiro use a more dynamic frequency range, taking things back down and play the paper in various ways to create all these fascinating dynamic paper alterations. Not the easiest release of the week, but surely one of the more inspiring ones.
Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

Costa Monteiro has issued at least two discs of solely paper-derived sounds; here it’s a duo of same and, as before, the results are strong and somewhat astonishing. Hard to get that “Gee whiz!” kinda thought out of my head, like, “This is paper?!?!”. “Ductile” tends toward the brutal as well, fierce waves of sound scouring one’s speakers clean, rumbling and pealing like nearby thunder. Harsh and then some.
Brian Olewnick, Just Outside

After the extraordinary “Allotropie”, Alfredo Costa Monteiro shows once again his instant-composition talent with paper and microphones, this time in the honourable company of Pascal Battus, armed with the same instruments. The core of the question is that the sounds generated by the duo were captured on tape without any processing or effects, which is all the more astonishing when one hears the mind-dazzling variety of abnormal emissions, ranging from the most delicate (?) hissing caress to the harshest methods of distortion, all the while being surrounded by falling bombs, shrapnel-like fusillades, deformed whistles, crunch-and-munch morsels of insane noise. I suppose that the techniques used by the couple comprise the use of the mouth at least, but with this kind of maniacs you can never be sure of anything. The metaplastic quality of this music confines with a sense of jeopardy: well-trained listeners are already acquainted with this feeling. Two gentle sonic energumens who decided long ago that trying to explain a concept with words is totally useless. They do it with sound itself, which is always the best. Schismatic gestures and ominous emissions that the ears need to reinforce our structures.
Massimo Ricci, Touching Extremes

It was recorded in August 2007, in Paris . The sounds come from paper and microphones. At first, you are wondering how can we have a creative result out of this; still, it’s quite impressive. Especially, if we take into account that no mixing or effects have been used. It’s hard to believe that this well-constructed noise-music is the result of these “music» instruments only. It’s a music improvisation at the scope of noise, and simultaneously a piece of really genial music!
moremars

Your guess is as good as mine (probably better) as to the pedigree of these two cats. What I do know for sure though is that together they produce an abrasive cacophony that would rival that produced by any other noise merchant and they do so using only paper and microphones with the total absence of any processing effects. I know this because it says so on the sleeve but once you know this you can kinda tell. On first listen you find yourself playing a game of ‘How did they make that sound?’ but soon your subconscious mind becomes drawn into the game and you are absorbed into the maelstrom.
If I’m being perfectly honest, and I always strive to be so, then I must admit that Ductile isn’t an album that’ll feature regularly on my player but over the last month it has made more than a couple of appearances. The sounds they generate are a little cold and abrasive but I suppose that is the characteristics of the sound source. At first I was listening with curious ears as to how they were gong to pull this idea off. Subsequent listens were made with ears that simply enjoyed the verve with which this pair have realised their idea.
Wonderful Wooden Reasons