Costa Monteiro has created some of the most fascinating music of the last decade and this release continues that string. One never knows just what he might have up his sleeve from one disc to the next — paper as sole sound source? Turntable? Accordion? None of the above? But there's a consistency to his sound-world, a Costa Monteiro-esque aura that's all his own. Here, he's used sounds entirely derived from a certain "inner place", his home. The results might be loosely characterized as drone music in the sense that the sounds are lengthy and multi-layered, but there's a granularity in play and a deep textural appreciation that often escapes many drone-meisters.

No information is provided as to the specific sources but mention is made that all are presented "as is", with only dynamic manipulation and recombination on Costa Monteiro's part. One guesses various electronic effluvia were captured — the hums of household devices — but that swiftly becomes of no concern as the listener is engulfed by the swarm. It's a fairly gentle swarm as these things go, none of the onslaught of a Francisco Lopez, for example, but sometimes all the more threatening for this subtlety. The second track billows out like compressed steam into a subterranean chamber; just when it first subsides and you can barely make out faint images in the background, it surges forward again. While most of the sounds have been burred and rough thus far, an almost pure (slightly raspy) clear tone intrudes at the very end, a disturbing punctuation. The third is more of a roar, almost a watery onrush for much of its length before subsiding to a dull rumble. The disc closes with a more subdued track but one that's vast in its implied expanse. Portions sound for all the world like airplane propellers or outboard motors; numerous layers but each isolated by a unique sound-set making for a wonderfully dense matrix yet one that yields to differentiation when listened to closely. All four pieces are fine, but this last one is a knockout, as rich and solid a piece of industrial drone as you're likely to hear.

Alfredo Costa Monteiro: anatomy of inner place Is On Sale at Squidco!