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After their first successful collaboration "Further
Consequences of Reinterpretation" (premiered in May 2003 at
the Goethe-Institut in Lisbon, released as a CD album by the
Portugal-based label Crónica), and the project's appendix
release entitled "Product", the sound artists Paulo Raposo and
Marc Behrens have created a new dynamic sound work
entitled HADES.

HADES is based on sound recordings made aboard Lisbon
ferries and at the quays of Cais do Sodré, Trafaria and
Cacilhas 2001-2005. Both artists had initially set out to record
independently, being fascinated with the sounds of the ship
hull and landing gear, as well as with the actual passage on
the river, which gives a magnificent (maybe the best) view on
large parts of the old city of Lisbon.

During the course of the work which took three years to
complete, some more precisely directed recordings were
made together. Understanding the actual crossing as a
symbolic passage, and once it was reduced to sound and
memory, it became associated to the crossing of the mythic
river Styx to enter Hades, the ancient Greek underworld.

As the different sound recordings provide the artists with very
diverse material (for example low frequencies from the ship's
hulls and motors, high frequencies and beats from the gates
at Cais do Sodré), they understand the composition as
hovering on the delicate borderline between a soundscape
portrait and a multi-strata arrangement, in which things
happen parallelly, and individual layers move on more than
one path simultaneously.

In the opinion of and/OAR, HADES is not only one of the
strongest works to surface from either artist, a/O will go out on
a limb to state that it could very well set a new precedent of
quality for collaboration work of it's ilk. Needless to say, a/O is
highly honored to be releasing it. Please give it a very attentive
listen. Especially in headphones!

Apart from being collaborating sound artists, Behrens and
Raposo have also worked together since 2001 on the Lisbon
based label SIRR.

EARLABS (OCTOBER 2006)
Based on field recordings made while traveling on Lisbon ferry
boats and at various landing places, sound artists Marc
Behrens and Paulo Raposo have composed a four-part sonic
exposé in which untouched sounds blend with processed
sounds in such a way as to pull the receptive listener into that
shadowy region in which the real and the mythical become
indistinguishable. Hades is both a sound recording
documenting real experiences and a contemporary
soundscape for a timeless allegory.

As the journey unfolds "Gate" begins with a quiet, but dense,
drone as the low hum of the ferry's engine makes its presence
known. About one-half of a minute into the composition, a
stratum of noisy percussive clatter abruptly is added along with
various mechanical scrapes and groans that juxtapose
themselves against the increasingly powerful drone of the
engine creating a noticeably tense atmosphere and, at times, I
hear what can best described as fragments of garbled voices.
As the track reaches the final third of its length, the chaotic
noise and intense drone suddenly cease, the tension
dissolves, and all that remains are the sounds of waves and
random shreds of high-frequency tones.

"Crossing Into" is the first of two extended tracks (more than 21
minutes in length) containing a subtle array of eerie tones and
high-end frequencies that interplay with a layer of slightly
dissonant low-end tones along with occasional moments of
resonant booms and thuds making for an uneasy, surreal
ambiance. The final few minutes of this lengthy track find the
composition assuming an almost lower-case atmosphere.

The title track "Hades" is the shortest in duration of the four
movements being just over five minutes in length, but in this
short time an abundance of real sounds allow the listener to
become a virtual passenger on the ferry. "Hades" deserves the
recognition of being the composition that best captures the
essence of the original source sounds. The deep, rumbling
whir of the engine drones in the background, and, in the
foreground, the creaks and moans of the ships architecture
reveal in rich detail the stresses it faces as it moves through
the water. Detailed bangs and clangs make known the ferry's
mechanical operations, and there seem to be traces of human
voices and coughs present in the background.

"Crossing Out Of" is lengthiest and most abstract of the four
tracks (approaching 23 minutes) and for me, personally, the
most poignant. The first ten minutes is an immensely dark
drone, cacophonous at times, and constructed of heavily
processed sounds textured with pristine noises and a
combination of varying frequencies of harmonious tones. The
remaining thirteen minutes or so delivers a more restrained,
but quite sinister atmosphere. Random noises appear
unexpectedly amongst an unpredictable flow of varied and
discordant tones. A tension is present that never gets resolved.

"Hades" is one of and/OAR's strongest releases to date and
diligent listening will prove to be both rewarding and enjoyable.
This is an opportunity to hear contemporary sound art in one of
its best moments with the perfect blend of phonography and
masterful processing.
(Larry Johnson)

STYLE (issue #98 - NOVEMBER 2006)
One Should be alone when one listens to Hades, the joint work
of experimental composers and sound artists Marc Behrens
and Paolo Raposo. One needs time and, if possible, large
headphones. Silence is an absolute must. Like the CD's name
already states, this is an acoustic journey through the
underworld. One can't really prepare for it - for something that
unfolds is a great power, precisely through the absence of the
spectacular.

The CD starts with a type of nervous twitching comprised of
short-winded squeaks that are layered with overtones and
rumbling approaching from the distance until they fade into an
oscillating acoustic movement. A quick, winding sound is
resolved by the surf's even beating. Behrens and Raposo
approach Hades like a nervous animal resigned to it's destiny,
listening for what to expect from the underworld. At first
restless, but increasingly compliant over time. While crossing
the Styx, the border between the world of the living and the
underworld, one starts to form one's own pictures: the
uncertain boat, the silent ferryman Charon, the resounding
walls, the fear.

Marc Behrens created an atmosphere that makes one's own
uncertainty and vulnerability accessible. One listens so
attentively, the only way one can listen, and finally there is
nothing more than creaking planks and ropes being tugged
on. Paulo Raposo's part, which then follows, describes the
departure from Hades. So is there a way back? The question
remains open. At the end, one still hears the beating rope.
Rescue sounds different. The recordings that generated the
composition Hades are from Lisbon. Behrens and Raposo
were fascinated by the old ferry boats that have crossed the
Tejo since the 1950s, and their creaking sounds at sea. They
meticulously recorded the sounds of the ships, the docks and
steel pontoons. On one trip, the two artists watched the
salvaging of a sunken ship, a 'mud-caked part suddenly
emerged', says Behrens, "and suddenly it was there - the
association with the underworld; this mysterious place under
the earth that one doesn't at all hear or see, but which directs
are lives.'

The crossing as a symbolic trip to one's own subconscious.
'We wanted to divide the trip into various strata - high, medium
and deep. The real Hades remains a mystery and
inaccessible, because,' says Behrens, 'it doesn't exist.'

Empty spaces as the actual places.

(Rebecca Menzel - translated from German by Cathy Lara)

VITAL WEEKLY
(number 554 issue #48 - NOVEMBER 2006)
The Hades is the Greek god for death, and as you know, you
cross a river after you die, the Styx. The ferryman puts you on
the next border. I'm not sure if this ferryman has a boat, but
ferryboats are the theme of the collaborative release by Marc
Behrens and Paulo Raposo. Over the course of three years
they worked on this, with as a starting point, ferryboat
recordings from Portugal. I only like boats when they are the
size of a ferryboat; anything smaller makes me feel
uncomfortable. But such a big sized ship makes me feel ok,
and especially for a longer period, say going from Germany to
Sweden on the night ferry, makes me want to listen to the
motor, the metal bangs, the air condition, the water.
I understand the fascination of Behrens and Raposo fully and
listening to this brings back the memories of the various trips I
made. All of the familiar sounds are in here, and they are
carefully processed by both musicians. 'Hades' is not just a
plain recording of sounds of a ferry, but they compose with the
material. In 'Crossing Out Of', the final piece on the album, they
have some sorrowful tune at the bottom of the piece and
scraping sounds on top. A beautiful contemplative piece. The
others are equally strong pieces, less contemplative. 'Gate' for
instance takes us to the ship's motor and after a pretty noisy
intro, things are slowly silenced out in washes of the sea: the
boat has left. This CD is a very fine example of how to treat field
recordings in a highly intelligent way - an example to many, I'd
say. Great stuff. (Frans de Waard)

TOUCHING EXTREMES (DECEMBER 2006)
The sea is an obvious source of fascination; innumerable
artists have tried to come to terms with its sonic power in the
past. Marc Behrens and Paulo Raposo added a "mechanical"
nuance to their interests by recording the noise of ferry boats
and quays in various Portuguese marine locations, placing
them amidst other local environmental recordings to generate
this beautiful artifact. "Itinerantly" composed between 2003 and
2006, "Hades" stimulates and wakes up the nervous centres,
but even more often it leaves a lot of mental room for
concentration and reflection. The raw materials chosen by
Behrens and Raposo allow for an intriguing deployment of
gradations that might sound indelicately harsh in tracks like
"Gate 1" but, when sapiently treated, become mutations of
angelic choirs looking for a sky to dissipate in, ruptured by
faraway thuds and bumps, or even studies in dreams elicited
by adjacent pseudo-tones, finally directed to complete oblivion
("Crossing into"). "Gate 4" is an enthralling, obscure drone in a
reverberant virtual cathedral of noise, exquisitely sober and
impressively layered, later morphing into a siren's lament
lowered three octaves, wind and seagulls barely perceived in
this profound context; it's a masterpiece of the untold, one of
the overall best compositions I've enjoyed in at least a decade.
Every sonic object manipulated by the couple is translated into
something utterly meaningful, and the silences they leave for
the sounds to breathe in are nicely filled by extraneous
elements (a faraway bell tower entered my room at noon this
Sunday during this listening session, and it was wonderful).
"Hades" is brilliant, just like everything in the and/OAR
catalogue. (Massimo Ricci)

FURTHERNOISE
(JANUARY / FEBRUARY 2007)
Witnessing an old sunken boat being wrenched from its watery
grave is what gave Marc Behrens and Paulo Raposo the idea
to create a sonic journey towards the depths of the underworld.
Though this may immediately set off the concept album
warning light, Behrens and Raposo base their work on solid,
well recorded material collected from the ports, ferries and the
surrounding milieu of various coastal locations.
Their collaboration takes the form of four parts: 2 shorter
'Gates' which work as more active pieces. Machinery squeals
and thuds; tensile coils of metal strain under unknown
pressures; sound becomes dulled by the idea and presence
of water. These 'Gates' are full of spluttery abrasion as they
distort and swirl around the listener's perceptions of real and
manipulated sounds. They serve as introductions the longer
'Crossing into' and 'Crossing out of' pieces which inhabit the
bulk of this release.

The original source material: the sea, the creaking and
movement of these vessels are sensitively constructed and
manipulated; modifying, blurring and focusing reality. Smeared
tones and ghostly hollow sounds drift in and out of the horizon
as the real and the processed are expertly combined,
separated, disjointed and lulled. The pace of the whole album
matches the slowed down, thick feeling of slowly drifting in
water.

A journey worth taking many times.

(Mark McLaren)

ARTFORUM (DECEMBER 2006)
BEST OF 2006: MUSIC

1. Eliane Radigue: Naldjorlank
2. Maryanne Amacher: Gravity - Music For Sound Joined
Rooms Series
3. Keiji Haino: Performance at Sound Forest festival, Riga,
Latvia
4. Sons Of God: Swedenborg, Stockholm New Music Festival,
Sweden
5. Steve Roden: Lines & Spaces
6. Folke Rabe & Jan Bark: Argh! (Kning Disk)
7. John Cage: 18 Microtonal Ragas: Solo 58, performed by
Amelia Cuni and musicians at Festival Marz Musik, Berlin
8. Jonathan Coleclough & Murmer: Husk (ICR)
9. Shinji Aoyama: Eli, Eli, Lema Sabachthani?
10. Marc Behrens & Paulo Raposo: Hades (and/OAR)*

* Behrens draws on his background in product design to
create compositions that are far removed from Frankfurt's click
'n cut aesthetic - his second collaboration with Paulo Raposo
is based on recordings made on ferries and on harbor quays.
(Christina Kubisch)

DMUTE / LE SON DU GRISLI
(DECEMBER 2006)
Après avoir disposé leur matériel d’enregistrement à l’intérieur
d’embarcations évoluant en rade de Lisbonne, Marc Berhens
et Paulo Raposo montent leurs sound recordings en vue de
fantasmer une traversée du Styx, puis une approche du
Royaume d’Hadès.

Ingrédients concrets de l’ambient expérimentale proposée ici,
le souffle des vents et quelques vagues, les craquements du
bois des nacelles puis des chocs métalliques. Relevant l’
ensemble concret, le traitement électronique se charge d’
amasser les nappes grondantes, d’allonger les
enregistrements brefs offrant la possibilité de leur propre
changement en bourdon hésitant.

Aux portes d’Hades, donc, la tempête est simulée, qui marie
les zones d’ombres portées aux menaces des flammes, et
transporte l’auditeur de l’appel étrange d’une soufflerie
inquiète à l’abîme abstrait de silences troublants. Le tout
déposé lentement, conseillé paisiblement ; imposé avec
confiance et audace. (Guillaume Grisli)

NEURAL (JANUARY 29, 2007)
Marc Behrens and Paulo Raposo made these recordings one
by one at the beginning, on board a ferry boat and in other
places near the Lisbon area's landing places within the space
of three years (2001 - 2003). All the recordings were afterwards
edited and condensed into only four tracks, poetically hovering
between analytical vocations and audio-narrations. The work is
effective in the extremely refined assemblage tidiness, varied
in drones and textures. The sequences are then dilated, and
the harmonies and the iterations, very well structured following
sensitive attractions to (even) immaterial atmospheres. These
practices becomes really influential when the skills are so
unequivocal. These methods are not new in experimental
music, but in this case they reflect the most inspired
environments of the genre. This is an incomparably limpid
(lucid) sound art work, even in the uncertain lack of specific
programs and theories supporting what the music extensively
tells and charms. (Aurelio Cianciotta)

ALL MUSIC GUIDE (MARCH 2007)
In the minds of Marc Behrens and Paulo Raposo, Hades, the
abode of the Dead, is a water-world, but only because they
elected to focus their attention on the Styx, the river one must
cross to get there. Hades (the album) is definitely water-
centric. The two artists have recorded their sound material on
ferry boats and quays in Lisboa (Portugal). The album also
features additional material recorded by Patrick McGinley (aka
Murmer) who also has a very strong water-based release to
his credit ("They Were Dreaming They Were Stones"). Hades
consists of four pieces with titles depicting a journey to and
back from the Greek underworld. The two different “Gate”
pieces are portals made of wood: the creaking wood of old
boats, the sound of floating objects hitting piers. These portals
are quickly behind us and lead to the two main tracks:
"Crossing Into” and “Crossing Out Of”. Here we are treated to
delicate and disquieting compositions made of splashing
water, (not quite) silent sailing, mournful foghorn calls, wincing
metal brackets, and various other sounds evoking a ghost ship
sailing through a haunted area. These pieces are more
eventful and image-filled than Behrens’ usual output, but they
are just as carefully paced and artistically shaped as ever,
turning Hades into a vivid cinema for the ear and a must-have
for sound art afficionados.

Note that the sleeve announces five tracks (“1. Gate”, “2.
Crossing Into”, “[3. Hades]”, “4. Gate”, & “5. Crossing Out Of”),
but the third one is placed between brackets, as it does not
exist. There isn't a piece for Hades per se on this album, only
the journey leading to and out of it.*
(François Couture) * Paraphrased for clarity

PARIS TRANSATLANTIC (FEBRUARY 2007)
Marc Behrens and Paulo Raposo have been running the Sirr
label together since 2001, but this collaborative release
appears on the increasingly wonderful and/OAR imprint, which
is going from strength to strength these days. After some early
cassette only releases, Behrens' first CD Advanced
Environmental Control appeared on Bernhard Günter's Trente
Oiseaux label in 1995, but, as is also the case with Francisco
López, it's a mistake to associate him exclusively with the
quieter end of abstract electronic music. Hades in fact is quite
noisy, especially 34 seconds into the opening track, "Gate", a
clattering, squeaking assemblage of sounds recorded on
Portuguese ferryboats, but it eventually settles into more
familiar territory: low rumbling drones and ghostly wails,
accompanied by meticulously transformed natural sounds
(footsteps, doors slamming, distant voices, and waves
breaking). Hades, as Wikipedia will tell you (hey, if Wiki's good
enough for Phil Freeman it's good enough for me – 'scuse me
if I haven't got time to re-read The Odyssey), was "the gloomy
abode of the dead, where almost all mortals go. There is no
reward or special punishment in this Hades, akin to the
Hebrew sheol. In later Greek philosophy appeared the idea
that all the dead are judged after death and rewarded or
punished. In this view, Hades was the destiny of those who
were not particularly good or bad." Indeed; if you were good you
ended up in the Elysian Fields (not my idea of fun, the Champs-
Elysées, I can tell you), if you were bad it was off to Tartarus
and if they couldn't make up their mind what to do with you you
went to Asphodel. That probably explains why DJ Spooky
ended up there. Anyway, whether the south bank of the River
Tagus is Lisboan Paulo Raposo's idea of "the gloomy abode
of the dead" or not is open to question (it looks a far nicer place
to hang out than certain parts of Manchester I know), but if it's
as beautiful as the music on this album I'll take my place in the
queue to cross the Acheron right now. I'm waiting for the silent
boatman / To ferry me across the unknown waters. Oops,
wrong album. (Dan Warburton)

AQUARIUS RECORDS (APRIL 2007)
Sourced from recordings made aboard Lisbon ferries and at
the quays of Cais do Sodre (one of the neighborhoods in the
Portuguese capital), Marc Behrens and Paolo Raposo have
constructed an allegorical set of compositions on Hades that
intentionally mirror the mythological journey in crossing the
River Styx. According to the ancient Greek beliefs, Styx was a
border between the Underworld and Earth; and a ferry was the
only means of transportation across the river. When put into a
modern context of sound art and field-recording based collage,
quotidian sounds such as the rumble of a diesel motor as it
spews crusty exhaust and the creaking of the hull against the
pier takes on a much more profound significance.

Behrens and Raposo have done quite a good job in
highlighting particular sounds, frequencies, and vibrations
from the aquatic journey in traveling through Lisbon by way of
boat, as a way of transforming that experience into a sombre
event of mournful bellows and anguished sighs. Yet on
occasion, Hades becomes agitated with rasping clatters of
mechanical noise, alluding that the end of life is certainly not
an easy journey. For an album about such a portentous
subject as death, Behrens and Raposo do well to concentrate
upon their sounds through the lens of a minimalist conceptual
framework and allow the mythological and allegorical images
to flow around their well-grafted sound. (Jim Haynes)

E / I (SEPTEMBER 2007)
With The Sun, Andrew Deutsch aims to construct a sound
event that is static, or which, at any rate, shimmers in its fixed
place. Towards this end, an ocean’s wave is adopted as the
sound source which becomes the object of an excessive
fixation on the part of Deutsch. Over the course of the work,
however, the recording moves from its largely immobile, frozen
state, and comes alive as a spectral apparition. What remains
fixed, that is, what one experiences as stationary, is the gaze of
Deutsch itself. Through various digital processing devices,
then, Deutsch not only makes the ebb and flow of the waves
chime, rattle and clang along an expanded dynamic range, he
stands himself in as the frozen point of immobility, creating a
fine catch and retreat game between him and his source
sounds. Hovering clusters of organ-like notes and panoramic
spaces are thereby seen from a fascinating perspective, one
that participates in rather than frames the proceedings.
Deutsch himself makes efforts to point out that this is music
specifically intended to aid in the process of painting. While
this work is no doubt successful on that front, intentions be
what they may, the simple appearance of this work, with its
sonorous humming and eloquent, effulgent tones, is
becoming in and of itself. Successful, too, is Hades, a
collaborative work between Paulo Raposo and Marc Behrens,
which took place over some three years. Sounds featured are
the knocking of a ship’s hull, the clanking of gates and thrum of
motors, all of which were captured aboard Lisbon ferries at the
quays of Cais do Sodre, Trafaria and Cacilhas. Quite clearly,
the pair are not only interested in the exhibition of a sonic
environment, with all its respective particularities and
manners, but their arrangement in a complex structure of many
levels that feed into each other, overlap, and separate in a
partially controlled yet spontaneous fashion.
Unlike The Sun, which is largely serene, Behrens and Raposo
favor abrupt oscillations, doleful pauses, and more or less
sudden changes of attack. It stands as an approach that
comes to work as well as it does on account of the concise
and insightful way that it is employed. The boom and squeal of
machinery, while exaggerated many a sawtooth edge,
providing a leap in intensity, is shaded well by metallic
monochrome reverb and brooding, suspended chords and
hovering atmospheres, which approach and recede like the
tides. Although more manic, then, with so many muffled
squawks and rasping, churning drones that enable one
pleasure through displeasure, it also oozes a sublime oceanic
stillness. A most remarkable document, it seems to give a
presentiment of the dimension of the kernel from whence this
environment came. (Max Schaefer)

THE SQUID'S EAR (APRIL 2007)
Hard to believe that Marc Behrens once made abstract,
reductionist techno (under his Feedback Bleep and Eyephone
guises), as his recorded output since those early 90s
operations are literal three-sixties, manifesting themselves
instead via installation, field recordings and sound art work. He
seemed to shed his former skin completely, turning his back
on all things rhythmic - and harmonic or melodic, for that
matter - for "serious" artistic endeavors of more site-specific,
concretized and politicized natures. Paulo Raposo, whose
modus operandi virtually mirrors Behrens' own, founded the
Portuguese experimental imprint Sirr, and has built up just as
provocative a career muddying the waters between audio,
visual, space, and architecture by highlighting the situationist
malleabilities of sound.

On Hades, both Raposo and Behrens integrate natural sounds
and "synthetic" occurrences so seamlessly that the
environment created is rendered totally physical, a subliminal
actualization of minutely coarse, occasional texture. What goes
in between the sounds is every bit as important as what our
ears duly render - grey area becomes a third dimension in the
stereo field, the mind effectively filling in the blanks during each
"epic" bit of sonic grandeur, thanks to the duo's cinematic
acumen. Using sonic flotsam coaxed off of ferry boats and at
the quays of Cais do Sodré, Trafaria, and Cacilhas, Portugal,
despite the inherent proclamation of the album title, Behrens
and Raposo want to offer glimpses and sensations rather than
broad portraits of whatever seventh circles they've witnessed
visually. The opening "Gate" is about as clangorous as the
recording gets, as a river's tidal rush, scraping ship's hulls
against scabrous pilings and the rusting shells of buoys,
explodes into an index of metals and whitewash, nature's own
ambience subverted into a twisted soundscape. On "Crossing
Into," random squeaks weep between taut pulses, metal fibers
are scored so their resonances seem to decay indefinitely;
timbre is altered in an engrossing enough fashion that each
steel ping, knock and shiver achieves an epic, otherworldly heft.

Though broken up into five distinct points of reference, Hades'
long day's journey into night has been constructed to flow
effortlessly along its Stygian parameters, Behrens' and
Raposo navigating the compass of the soundscape with a
bracing intensity of purpose. Eclipsing contextual margins that
reaches far beyond mere installation wallpaper, Hades supple
imagery informs a powerful work that ballasts its exotic origins.
(Darren Bergstein)