[CP 199.21 CD] Antoni Caimari, Maria Emília Mendonça; Obres Per A Piano, Os Anéis De Urano

May 2025 release; after a sizable gap here is a new title in the "Vetoes" range (several concepts have been nominated by the C.P. P.T.B. over the past year & we're finally getting back up to speed) pairing two incredibly well-suited partner-LPs of Electronically- and Electroacoustically-tinged solo/free Piano Minimalisms by the Spanish Composer Antoni Caimari & the Brazilian Maria Emília Mendonça. 

Released in 1979 as the first release on storied Unió Músics (who much later brought us the "Acaricia La Mañana" LP by It (of "Viaje" fame, [CP 136 CD]) member Eduardo Polonio, as well as the "Encontre De Compositors" series, of which the second side of the first volume is featured prominently on the "Creelpolation-2; Sides-1 (Guitars)" set, [CP 115-1 CD]), Caimari's "Obres Per A Piano" wows us w/ it's increasingly apparent application of "Piano Manipulat Electronicament" & "Piano No Convencional I Veus Manipulades Electronicament" which, at the beginning of the second side, start to turn the otherwise jaunty, pointillist, improvised figures of the first into something otherwordly & by the second or third track we're deep into the prepared-piano & "screaming into the tape echo" void (where the more traditional motifs have all but disappeared; listen to the first sound-sample for a taste). 

Recorded & released privately in 1985 & subtitled "Viagens Interplanetárias, Electroacoustic music," "Os Anéis De Urano" is a wonderful set of spiritually-leaning free playing cut with studio after-effects (Arthur Priolli, whose only other discographical credit is on Maria Bethânia's 1983 "Nossos Momentos" LP, is credited as "Effector") & fantastic emulations of Electronic Timbre (the sliding pitch-scale of LFO's here emulated here by what sound like Slide Whistles; elsewhere an uncannily similar application of studio effects & pitch-echo essentially takes over) mapping the star math received via telemetry in the 60s & 70s (ala Laurie Spiegel's "Harmonices Mundi") into sound. Mendonça's playing largely riffs on the harp-like figures of Alice Coltrane & is an absolute delight even in the stretches where the "Electronics" wander off into the aether. Liner notes reveal: "Os Anéis De Urano is electroacoustic music inspired by the Astrology, but also from the scientific information sent to Earth by the robotic spaceships that explored the Solar System between 1960 and 1978."

This single-disc edition squeezes both onto a single "Double-Headliner" edition (ala the previous CP 199.XX title) with seconds to spare, nestled neatly inside a six-panel booklet (even the aesthetics of the jackets line up beautifully; pure kismet!)