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a spanish belgian who plays the baritone guitar and bassclarinet player from Antwerp. Not an everyday combination but we are speaking of a release of RAT records, the adventurous label of Teun Verbruggen and Bruno Vansina. Both guitar player Nico Roig and clarinet player Joachim Badenhorst are no debutants, each one of them have released several adventurous albums on their own. Be it folk, rock, pop, electronica or jazz, these two open minded musicians aren`t afraid of any style. On this duo debut they collage an intriguing palet of weird sounds with a filmic character. A total of 28 music polaroids that would suit as a soundtrack for strange dream worlds. This music lines up perfectly with bands such as FES, Elliot Sharp and even Nino Rota. This duo is clearly on the good path because in october Os Meus Shorts will play a series of concerts in New York! (Georges Tonla Briquet - Rif Raf Magazine). - Rif Raf
Featuring Nico Roig on baritone guitar & compositions and Joachim Badenhorst on bass clarinet. Mr. Badenhorst, who is currently living here, just left us with copies of this fine duo disc with someone named Nico Roig on baritone guitar. I don't know much about either of these players but I did notice that Joachim is on Songlines CD that comes out this September (of 2009) by a guitarist named Ryan Blotnick with Jeff Williams & Simon Jermyn in the band. It turns out that Nico is originally from Barcelona, Spain and Joachim from Brussels, Belgium, where they met.
This disc features 28 short pieces, most under two minutes. The baritone guitar has a big, distinctive sound and the combination with the bass clarinet is just right. Nico often writes strong yet simple melodies which don't have time to develop yet still ring true. Some of the pieces are quirky with odd harmonies, the guitar and bass clarinet weaving around one another tightly. Although most of these pieces are short, they do set moods and provide ample combinations of twisted melodies and ideas. I dig how on "Excursio" the post-surf guitar and (Zorn-like) bent bass clarinet notes combine forces to come up with surprising results. There pieces where the bass clarinet is used to turn notes inside out and the bari guitar also bends notes out of shape, yet everything works to create a series of odd melodies or somewhat charming songs. This most impressive young duo will be playing here at DMG on Sunday, October 18th at 6pm. - Bruce Lee Gallanter, Downtown Music Gallery - Downtown Music Gallery
Discography
Os Meus Shorts (in duo Nico Roig-Joachim Badenhorst)
(CD-Rat Records)
www.lastfm.com/music/os+meus+shorts
a second record is coming in trio with Martí Melià on Bass Sax&Clarinet
Photos
Bio
Os Meus Shorts, meaning "my shorts" in portuguese, is a band created by Nico Roig with Joachim Badenhorst, focused on short structures of composition and improvisation. In duo we made a record and we were selected in the "European Guitar Award" in Dresden on 2006.
Now we are three on the band. This is the band:
Nico Roig: Baritone guitar / objects
Joachim Badenhorst: Bass Clarinet / objects
Martí Melià: Bass Sax / objects
In the very begining we thought it would be a kind of experimental band for "instructed" people (even if it wasn't our wish) so, we didn't expect much attention from people that is not used to see improvised or alternative concerts.
We were so wrong! The response of the audience was amazing! Maybe because we put together many diferent styles that you can somehow recognize, trying to reach a balance between a "save" feeling and the "unknown".
Me, as "the composer", I love melodies as much as I love concrete noises, and sometimes we get to a point in wich one can be the substitute of the other.
In this sense we can't talk about an experimental/improvisation band. I would rather talk about a pop band that only plays the riff they like from this song, or only the chorus from the other.
Preparing the set list for this band is like making a puzzle every time, we could even talk about a "sudoku" of mind states!! How to keep it surprising (also for us) all the time!
It's a great experience for us indeed, and I think we are slowly getting to transmite it to a very diferent kind of audiences.
The perfect places to play is in quiet ones, with deep listening, but we use to play in noisy places also, or bigger ones. That makes us think about another kind of setlist and eventually add a drummer. And this we like a lot too!
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