Review of String Machine by Nuntempe Ensemble, 2014

Please pay attention, dear Europeans, be very careful. Contemporary music has so long colonized also the South American continent, generating a new set of composers who provide a particular and personal attention to classical guitar’s language.

We have an excellent example with this cd, String Machine, released by Nuntempe Ensemble, four classical guitarists, Pablo Boltshauser, Agustin Nazzetta, Andrés Vaccarelli and Arile Elijovich, which since 2008 engage themselves with perseverance and dedication to the exploration of the vast guitar repertoire with particular attention to contemporary music and tocultural and ethnic diversity, musical pluralism and all possible combinations of timbre, style and expressive that their six strings instruments allow.

This cd is made of compositions created specifically for the quartet, all recently dating recently, starting from six fragments of the Cuarteto nro2 composed in 1999 by the Colombian composer Eblis Alvarez. The other tracks are Ciclis (2010) commissioned by Federico Nunez, Libro de Estudios (2004) by Juan Pablo Simoniello, Iniciar Sesion (2011) Cecilia Pereyra and the song that gives the title to the cd, String Machine (2010), by Marcelo Delgado.

All music move through all the possible techniques (arpeggiated, pinched, rhythmic tensions, colors, call and response between the instruments, etc.) that can be obtained and used in the classical guitar’s context and you immediately feel a strong rhythmic tension. The rhythm management and use of the guitar as a percussion instrument, even in its tonal component, seem to be the hallmarks of this CD. 

Before formulating these thoughts I decided to let the cd mature through prolonged and repeated listens repeatedly over time, this is not easy listening music but after a while I was caught and immersed in the sounds that come from the four instruments of the Ensemble, which proves to be a perfect rhythmic and melodic "machine", a perfectly tight-knit, well-oiled and integrated. It’s impossible, at least for me, to identify the four musicians and to figure out who is playing in the absence of scores. Pablo Boltshauser, Agustin Nazzetta, Andrés Vaccarelli and Arile Elijovich are four excellent virtuous and in this CD they gives a great demonstration of their ability. I hope to listen to them again and soon.