Sonic Scope #9
Experimental and improvised music festival

It is here in these nooks and crannies that talents are frequently confirmed and genuine surprises are revealed, confronting us with attitudes and challenges that we are not always expecting to discover. And even if we miss them, it is these events that solidify discourses and strengthen the necessary local creative energies. Later, there will have to be an enormous respect shown for whoever thinks that it is here that we should spend our time and money, on an endeavour under the guise of a public service, with the poetic wish and desire to place ourselves face to face with music and artists who need that moment of attention. Sonic Scope elegantly exhibits eight consecutive editions, made with the dedication and detail of a parallel reality that we should like to be absolutely perfect. Listen to the proposals that we show as the alternative reality and allow yourselves to be surprised by what you don’t know and by what you recognise. From the accumulated experience of Osso Exótico to the dub vitality of Gala Drop, from the textured electronics of Oto to the collective dynamics of the Variable Geometry Orchestra, or from the lulling sound of the drones of The Beautiful Schizophonic to the game of volumes developed by Scarp with Gabriel Ferrandini, here is a palette with sufficient colours to light up the whole of this Sunday afternoon.

The Sonic Scope festival came into being in September 2001 based on an initiative proposed by two sound and visual artists, Nuno Moita and João Vicente (André Gonçalves later joined the organising team for the 2002 edition), who subsequently founded the publishing platform Grain of Sound. The aim of the event, which was conceived as an annual affair, was to create a unique context that would give people the opportunity to show new languages or new proposals drawn from among some of the most striking examples of the experimental reality currently existing in Portugal, whenever possible displayed in direct confrontation with foreign proposals. Vitriol, Soundtrap, Manuel Mota, Margarida Garcia, Sei Miguel, Carlos Santos, Stapletape, Vítor Joaquim, David Maranha, Caveira, Curia and @c have all passed through the different concert halls that Sonic Scope has been occupying since its first showing (Fonoteca de Lisboa, Galeria Zé dos Bois and Gare Marítima de Alcântara, for example).