Projects

WE NEED THE EARTH

https://www.youkalimusic.com/index.php/catalogo/435-we-need-the-earth

After touring Europe and Asia with musical projects of various kinds and receiving artistic inspiration from different places and atmospheres, Manuel Borraz returns to Spain where he records ¨We Need The Earth¨ his first jazz album with his own compositions together with excellent musicians such as Juanma Barroso on drums, Maikel Vistel on tenor saxophone, Toño de Miguel on double bass and Carmen Lancho on voice.

“We Need The Earth” speaks about a trip around the planet and the importance of taking care of the environment. It is an invitation to meet with nature and its magic through the poetry of jazz. A personal and unique jazz born from the background of Manuel Borraz that has an artistic past that ranges between different genres and whose training includes different languages ​​and ways of seeing and expressing art, from classical music to free improvisation.

“We Need The Earth” does not leave you indifferent. The compositional unpredictability surprises and radiates originality in a framework where each musician flows and brings his skill from the best of the places he knows, moving as a unit in a sound universe of his own. This project branches out from contemporary jazz and brings together twelve themes, mixing tradition, irregular rhythms, extended harmonies …

¨We Need The Earth¨ has already been very well received by its listeners, press and critics and has a tour prepared for this 2021/22. It is a project capable of filling the scenarios with life and with a very clear and forceful message. We need this planet, let’s take care of it.

GET OUT OF YOUR WAY

https://orxunarchives.bandcamp.com/album/get-out-of-your-way?fbclid=IwAR1mJgz2dlJNtqcyjm5I0W5G

Artistic company created in 2018 in Basel, Switzerland, and essentially constituted by Manuel Borraz Monasterio (prepared piano and different objects) and Jordi Pallarés Barberà (drums, percussions and toys). Imbued by mainstreams such as John Cage’s “Chance Music” and the abstract expressionism “Action Painting” by Jackson Pollock, this association arises with the aim of discovering, deepening and exploring an aural experience that has sound exploration as its connecting thread. The program merges the members’ background (from classical tradition, jazz to popular music) with the search for a hyperaesthetic union. This one is musicalized in a tentative process of contemporary avant-garde that has clear preponderance to free improvisation. Performing silence, expressive “dramaturgy” crossing the limits of tonality, gestural stanza, as well as the motivation to add their creative resources plus momentarily unearthing new ones, is part of a holistic event that is subtly and symbiotically pulverized with the listener. As a group they have performed mainly in Switzerland, for instance participating in the Swiss Foundation For Young Musicians. They prepare a tour for 2021 in reason of exposing their first production: “Get Out Of Your Way”.

IS IT ALWAYS LIKE THIS? COLLECTIVE

Is it always like this? is a free improvisation music collective formed in Basel in 2018. The quartet is formed by Paula Sánchez from Argentina (cello and objects) Diego Aguirre Zaldivar from Chile (guitar and artefacs) Dimos Vryzas from Greece (violin and FX) Manuel Borraz Monasterio from Spain (piano and different objects). The love of improvisation and music in its different forms came together to create a collective in which the awareness of the moment, the inner life activity, the sensibility of the listening, the power of share and comunicate and the acceptance of duality are the focus of their musical activity. Coming from different musicals universes, countries and life experiencies the collective play together as the walls didn´t exist, as sound is all that matters, as life presence and playing is now and always the most lightly force to do on Earth.

Live in Murbacherstrasse is a free improvisation music album recorded and mixed between 2019 and 2020 by the collective ”Is it always like this?’. Their journey through music and comunication generates a dialog between each player that creates an unexpected sound activity which arises in many forms and sinuous colors. The variety of sound material that appears in Live in Murbacherstrasse 48 is created by the experience, sensibility and different techniques that the collective have obtained and explored during the close study of sound in the past years. The exploration, innovation, experimentation and spontaneity of the moment gets to be the main focus of an album in which noone knows what will happen next and thats tremendously inspiring.

OITAP DUO

From impresionism to minimalism through the big influence that had in both aestetichs (and composers) the improvisation. The program explores the connection that arises and follows from one style to his neighbour with the addition of very great and well known pieces of Spanish classical music which belong and take part to that evolution and historial moment.

The duo improvises over some pieces and performs in a concrete and creative order.

Oitap Dúo is based between Amsterdam and Basel. This duo explores the limits between classical and contemporary music and improvised music, through contemporary compositions and modern music. The communication, respect of the score and interaction between both players gets to be the main focus of a program full of colors. Each players brings to the performance a unique approach that creates an atmosphere that result in a recital where the connection and respect of the music and the interpreter coexist and belongs.

In the last recitals they were playing pieces from Maurice Ravel to Isaac Albeniz and Steve Reich always taking care of the aesthetics and using improvisation.