Releases

List of tracks:

1 Bicho Raro 7:06

2 BR+DSC 3:41

3 Desconcierto (1) 2:48

4 Desconcierto (2) 4:09

5 La Careta 2:19

6 Tangos, Scarlatti, Chopin y algo más 5:19

7 KTOTAM 15:33

Art cover by Tere Pensado

TAPE RELEASE by YDLMIER! (August 24, 2012)

Title: 6 Delusional Studies

http://www.grydcomplex.org/ydlmier.html

Netlabel release by Pan y Rosas! The album can be downloaded for free. Here’s the link:

http://www.panyrosasdiscos.net/pyr074-andrea-pensado-teraz-tak/

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Three hot chunks of explosive improvisation fill the debut LP by Los Condenados, one of the Boston area's most resolutely form-destroying units. Blending electronics, woodwinds and vocals into searing blasts of audio-thuggery, Los Condenados create a gibbering racket that sounds like a collaboration between Voice Crack, the Snyder/McPhee Duo, and Schimpfluch. Andrea Pensado, an Argentinian expatriate (by way of Poland's Krakow Academy of Music), handles laptop and vocals. Her voice contains some of the birthing-terror described by Yoko Ono, but manages to fit itself into treated-packaged sequences rather than long-form squack-yodeling. Her laptop work is the essence of beautiful noise. Jules Vasylenko plays invented woodwinds -- bamboozle sax and trombax -- with furious circular logic that makes him sound like Foghorn Leghorn screaming while bobbing on the ocean in a little raft. Walter Wright (who runs Lowell's 119 Gallery, where the first side of the LP was recorded) is a fascinating electronics-fiddler as well. Small shrieking events pour from his set-up like bronco worms. The results have a riveting post-form logic, filled with small events that haul your attention in, unlike many other abstract excursions we could name. The three pieces on Yeppers! were recorded live in Eastern Mass, during 2011 and 2012, and they will stroke the underside of your taste-receptors so lovingly, you'll want to lick the damn record. But keep your tongue-socks on, sport. Music is for listening. Not eating.

YEPPERS!

by LOS CONDENADOS

Jules Vasylenko - bamboozle sax and trombax Walter Wright - analog electronics Andrea Pensado - laptop and voice

(Art cover by Ted Lee)

Vinyl released by Feeding Tube Records:

http://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/yeppers

Read the description by Ted Eel!

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Split tape release with Miss Olivia Kennett by Hidden Temple Tapes!! (art cover by Olivia!)

http://hiddentempletapes.storenvy.com/products/12135987-020-andrea-pensado-miss-olivia-kennett

https://soundcloud.com/hiddentemple/andrea-pensado-tangotriste

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LOS CONDENADOS tape release by YDLMIER!! (Art cover by Lee Tindall)

Here’s the link:

http://www.grydcomplex.org/ydlmier.html

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New 5-way split on Love Is The Law Records (Eric Brown’s label) Belltone Suicide, Linda, Scald Hymn and myself.

http://www.musicstack.com/label/love+is+the+law

http://www.musicstack.com/discography/andrea+pensado/5+way+split+

VINYL RELEASE ON FEEDING TUBE RECORDS! “Without Knowing Why” - Art Cover by Ted Lee LP with mp3 Downloads - Edition of 300 - You can buy it here:

http://feedingtuberecords.com/releases/without-knowing-why/

This is Byron Coley’s review:

Exceptional solo LP from this Argentinian ex-pat, who has been based for the last decade-plus in Eastern Massachusetts. Feeding Tube previously issued the Yeppers LP with Andrea’s sometimes trio, Los Condenados, but this is a sample of her latest work — insane solo sound creations that are accompanied in live performance by some very crafty puppet work. The spectacle of this live show is astounding disorienting, but the same is true for the music shorn of the visuals.

Ms. Pensado’s primary instrument is the computer, and her early work was created in academic settings in both Argentina and Poland. But since moving to the States, one senses the arc of her work is tending toward the Dionysian, and the sounds on Without Knowing Why are state-of-the-art noise inventions for laptop and voice. The electronics and soundscrapes share a certain tonal quality with some recent work in subliminal noise explorations by folks like Matt Kreftng, Jason Lescallet and Aaron Dilloway. But her attitude ultimately emerges as somehow more aggressive than those boys. And the mix of post-glottal vocalese and the distended muzzy textures of her music create a very unstable base.

We would suggest that listeners grab their ankles before the album starts to play, but that would spoil aspects of the record’s gestalt. Prepare to be MOVED. – Byron Coley, 2015

Solo Tape Release by AYURVEDIC TAPES:

EL VACIO DE LA COPA - Thanks to Seamus Williams from the glorious Worcester, MA!

ayurvedictapes.blogspot.com

https://www.discogs.com/label/623815-Ayurvedic-Tapes

https://www.discogs.com/Andrea-Pensado-El-Vacio-De-La-Copa/release/8713837

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Tape release of two duos with Id m theft able recorded live in March 2016 and August 2017 (Released Dec. 2017)

https://idmtheftable.bandcamp.com/album/andrea-pensado-id-m-theft-able

Amazing art cover by id m theft able!

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“Accepting the Path to Love” - Solo tape release by Anathema Archive (http://www.anathema.me) January 2018

https://soundcloud.com/anathema-archive/andrea-pensado-accepting-the-path-to-love-excerpt

"If the piano, as Val Wilmer said so long ago about Cecil Taylor, is 88 tuned drums, Andrea Pensado plays 88 laptops in one. She uses a collection of digital modules that she built herself in the Max programming language. She likes triggers, and will control sounds with a voice headset, by swishing around a blank space on an ipad, by tilting her phone, or more likely all three at once. She's even built a ventriloquist doll that triggers sounds by opening it's mouth (it's creepy as fuck). Her setup is so extensive and so impressively intricate, she ought to sound clunky, like a person wearing a huge robot suit. Instead, she's viscerally direct. Solo, she's so loud that she's frequently fixed a stuffy nose in the crowd. In a group (Los Condenados, Phurnne), she magically never overpowers, easily seeping around and between the other performers. Andrea grew up studying classical piano in Argentina, went to college first in La Plata and later in Krakow, Poland. And now, when she isn't freaking the shit out of adults, she lives in Salem, Massachusetts teaching piano to kids by day. Come nighttime, though, the fluidity she's learned from orchestral music stands in wild contrast to her sense of texture. Andrea's modules fritz out thumps and cracks that seem like a hundred oak branches breaking at not quite the same moment. Static scribbles over itself, interrupts and overtakes her vocal growls and sputters, and sometimes you'd swear the sound had morphed into a predator that's choking her in front of you.

These recordings play with hard stereo panning, setting her unmerciful Max modules against supple piano and voice, and it helps hint at the aspects of Andrea's performance that you would usually only notice live: Atlas-level strength, the relentless energy of a wood-chipper, and the plain joy at finding moments when you're not forced to qualify, edit, mitigate, pre-empt, prettify or gloss.

There's lots of nice musicians out there. Lots of cool guitars, loads of fun summer jams with streetwise lyrics. Nothing wrong with em.

But sometimes, things get messy and you wish you could electrocute yourself, get back to zero, chuck the whole thing. Andrea makes the music for that day." - Angela Sawyer

Generous write-up by Angela Sawyer!

Title of CD: KTOTAM (2011)

Released by Zeromoon: http://www.zeromoon.com/releases/andrea-pensado-ktotam-zero012

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“As Within, So Without” - Tape release by FTAM Productions - June 2018 -

https://ftamproductions.bandcamp.com/album/as-within-so-without

The label description:

Any discussion of cut up noise in the United States that does not include Andrea Pensado is a conversation that is seriously missing the point. Pensado’s work often emerges from a fully controlled amalgam of pitch perfect blasts of harsh noise that surround and embody the stereo field. On “As Within So Without,” the noise artist enacts an ethics of restraint, allowing snippits of a Wiese-esque noise pallett to intermingle with a decidedly New England approach to vocal mania (think I DM Theft Able or Crank Sturgeon) as a subdued sense of terror slowly enters the picture. Without question, this tape captures a master at work.

Nice review by Ryan Masteller on TABS OUT! - http://www.tabsout.com/?p=19536

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VOCAL STUDIES #8

Limited Edition Cassette by Econore Records

Released October 25, 2020

https://econore.bandcamp.com/album/vocal-studies-8

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“... on the occasion of this noble feature called human disorder...” - CD release by Cruel Symphonies. November 28, 2020

https://cruelsymphonies.bandcamp.com/album/on-the-occasion-of-this-noble-feature-called-human-disorder

Cruel Symphonies is exceptionally happy to kick off the label with the one and only Andrea Pensado. The 001 on this release stands for not only the catalog number, but also as the rightful position Andrea Pensado lives in on my list of the greatest noise artists performing today. In fact, this label was formed out of the need for a new Andrea Pensado album. Thankfully, this album has not only lived up to my greatest expectations but exceeded them greatly! On this album Andrea masterfully demonstrates her power of restraint while taking us on a jilted, hard panned journey through hell. The compositions build in a patient gradual way while exhibiting the prowess for improvisation one can only possess through years of practice. Andrea tactfully delivers some of her most challenging vocalizations to date rightfully earning her a place among legendary female vocalists of new music such as Bethany Beardslee, Yoko Ono, and Pauline Oliveros. All while harsh electronics tremor and shudder, backing Andreas voice like a cruel tortured marionette doll forced to stand up at once and dance across the stage. Andrea Pensado’s artistic roots lay within the study of classical composition and the experimental computer music of the early 20th century. Yet, she has earned a formidable reputation in the noise scene due to her blend of the courageous academic experiments in music of old and the embracement of the emotion and ferocity of the modern noise music scene. Due to this fact, her music truly transcends genre and lives in the hearts of experimental music enthusiasts around the world. If you are a maniac like me dead set on the pursuit of music existing on the cutting edge of experimentation and innovation, then this album needs to be part of your collection.

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s P L e e N C o F F i N - 7 & 7 series

7 & 7 is a double 7″ vinyl box set series that was published as a subscription in three limited edition volumes from Fall, 2020 to Spring, 2021. Each volume contains exclusive material by four artists/groups on two 7″ records with an art booklet and download code, lovingly packaged in reclaimed 7″ audio reel boxes with repurposed vintage wallpaper covers.

This is the link to Vol. 3 where my track was included. (Sol en Fuga Menor)

https://spleencoffin.com/portfolio/7-7-vol-3/

“a pesar de todo” - Tape release with Mutual Aid Records -

July 23, 2021

https://mutualaidrecords.bandcamp.com/album/a-pesar-de-todo

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Split LP with id m theft able

Recorded on Sept. 11 2020 in Salem, MA as part of a live zoom series “Quarantunes” organized by Feeding Tube Records

https://feedingtuberecords.com/

The session is here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ixusqpwtwmc

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Handle With Care - Tape release by Refulgent Sepulchre - June 15 2021

This is a split with Jacob Winans

https://refulgentsepulchre.bandcamp.com/album/handle-with-care

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TODOS Y TODO - Collaboration with {AN} Eel - CD-R + Digital Album released by HUMANHOOD RECORDINGS

December 2, 2021

- https://humanhoodrecordings.bandcamp.com/album/todos-y-todo

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PHILOPHONIA - CD-R + Digital Album released by Econore Records, Germany -

February 17, 2023

https://econore.bandcamp.com/album/philophonia

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CIRCUS PARADE - CD + Digital Album released by Artsy Records, Finland.

May 5, 2023

https://artsyrecords.bandcamp.com/album/circus-parade

Reviewed in the Vital weekly - Number 1394

ANDREA PENSADO – PHILOPHONIA (CDR by Econore)

Following her involvement with the Elka Bong LP (Vital Weekly 1385) and her solo CD ‘Circus Parade’ (Vital Weekly 1389), she has more solo work on ‘Philophonia’. This new release sees the continuation of voice and noise; the first is the starting point, and the second is the result. As I wrote before, I have no clear idea of her methods, which can be pure analogue, pure digital or something in between, but the result is the kind of noise I like. There is some thought into this, and the result isn’t the endless onslaught of noise. We hear ‘other’ sounds and instruments, perhaps plundered from radio or TV, noise, feedback, distortion, and the voice in there somewhere. Are there words and meanings, or is it all about sounds produced by the mouth? That’s something I don’t know, and also, judging by the music and the titles, something that is to be found somewhere. The music has some excellent intensity, which doesn’t make this easy listening, but compelling it definitely is. I wrote before, ‘Think Henri Chopin in the hands of Merzbow’, but this time I like to add it is more Chopin than Merzbow. In ‘Dla Scriabina’, there is a considerable amount of piano sounds (maybe there is a link with Russian composer Alexander Scriabin?), which adds a surprisingly more musical touch to the music. Silence, in all three pieces, is scarce but not absent; another essential difference with more traditional noise music, along with excessive use of the stereo panorama (not all the time, luckily, as that would drive the listener up the wall). ‘Philophonia’ is another tour de force, quite literally. (FdW)

Reviewed in the Vital weekly - Number 1389

ANDREA PENSADO – CIRCUS PARADE (CD by Artsy Records)

The name of Andrea Pensado came up only a few weeks ago, in Vital Weekly 1385, when she contributed vocals to an LP by Elka Bong, or rather, Elka Bong and Pensado as a guest on one side and Steve Davis on the other side. We have to go back a lot of Viatl Weekly issues to find another solo release from her. In Vital Weekly 783, I reviewed her ‘Ktotam’ CD for Zeromoon. To recap something, Pensado studied music in Argentina and Poland and currently lives in the USA. Since then, she had several solo releases in which voice and electronics are the main ingredients. In my previous review, I mentioned that she used max/MSP, but I am unsure of her recent work. Maybe digital processing plays some part in this music, but I can also see a role for analogue apparatus. I don’t remember that old release, but somehow I think this new release is noisier than her previous work. Her music can be classified as noise music, certainly the longest, ‘Learning To Love Insanity’. But in all three tracks, totalling forty-one minutes, she plays around with vocal sounds that may have (or not) a meaning, and she feeds those to a bunch of electronics, responsible for the suitable destruction of language as we know it. Throughout, Pensado’s music is quite chaotic but also dense. Everything happens everywhere, and she doesn’t allow for any moment of rest in her music. This is undoubtedly not easy listening, and her outburst of noise is a blast. Think of Henri Chopin in the hands of Merzbow in the early to mid-90s, and yet, Pensado has a sound that makes it all very personal, somewhere between an attack on the listener’s sense and catharsis, to let her inner beast out. Not music for every day, and this might be my noise fill of this week. (FdW)

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UNREDEEMABLE - Preverbal - (with Tracy Lisk on drums and bowed cymbals)

CDR released by LEM in February 2024 - www.loveearthmusic.com

https://unredeemable.bandcamp.com/

Reviewed in the Vital Weekly - Number 1429

Behind Unredeemable, we also find a duo, Andrea Pensado (voice, electronics) and Tracy Lisk (bowed cymbals, drums), and their music is quite the odd collision of noise and improvised music. Of course, pairing those two genres happens all the time (and lots is to be said that a lot of noise, due to its direct nature, is improvised), but what these two do is a bit different. Their recording uses a sonic overload, or Pensado goes quite extreme with her sonic approach. Everything she does contrasts with Lisk, whose playing we quickly recognise, but with microphones picking up her sounds too, some spill into the noise. Lisk plays the drums mostly chaotic and bows her cymbals into shrieking textures. They rarely let the listener breathe fresh air, but it happens in ‘Noli Timere’, the most extended piece and the middle of seven. After that, they continued with another wild blast. I am reminded of the sonic brutalism and improvised noise I usually receive from Viande Records. At fifty-one minutes, this was quite the journey, an uneasy and bumpy ride that left me quite exhausted. I went outside for a walk in the cold sunshine to get out the hermetically closed sound of Unredeemable. (FdW)