Label: Headlights

過去30年間、様々な形で共演を重ねてきたポルトガルの演奏家2者の激シブ共作!!当店お馴染みの即興演奏家であり、90年代から優れたギター録音を続け、現在まで50タイトル程の音盤をリリースしているポルトガル孤高の音楽家Manuel Mota。氏と活動際初期から共演を続け、他にもLoren ConnorsやThurston Mooreといった重鎮勢とも絡んできた同国のベーシストMargarida Garciaとの、2025年12月末に出版したデュオ録音[The Figure In The Carpet]。演奏の断片と爆発的残響が混在する不完全さと緊張感に満たされた内容であり、退廃と装飾の両方として機能する秀逸な音響と雑音。150部限定。





For the last 30 years Margarida Garcia and Manuel Mota have shared a common space of listening, risk, and reinvention. A singular language born from the absolute necessity of the moment.
Following Domestic Scene (2024, Feeding Tube Records), The Figure in the Carpet confirms a body of work that continues to expand with rigor, subtlety, and an originality rarely encountered.
Here, sound is not merely gesture or melody; it is also fragment, remainder, residue — noise that functions simultaneously as ruin and ornament. Imperfections and tensions destabilize the structure, yet at the same time make intentional gestures perceptible, creating a music in which what remains or disperses is as significant as what is directly played. Without this residue, active listening and the perception of melody would be impossible.
The title evokes Henry James’s homonymous short story and its idea of a hidden design — a latent form that only allows itself to be glimpsed through persistence and sustained attention. In this recording, the “figure” is revealed not through assertion, but through subtle accumulation: small inflections of timbre, almost imperceptible variations in density, a fragile dynamic balance that reorganizes itself at every moment. What at first listen seems minimal or elusive ultimately exposes an internal architecture, at once dense and suspended.