Portuguese musician. Released under Ananana and Staalplaat. Works by manipulating broken cds and cd players, creating short loops that are afterwards edited together in DAT, without further processing and/or over-dubs.
Sometimes compared to Oval because of the processes used, Discmen is highly ironic not only in the compositions but also in the titles chosen for the tracks or releases, as the short discography shows:
stucker mini-cd (ficta / ananana 1999)
part human part simpson cd (microwave / staalplaat 1999)
Quoting Rui Eduardo Paes in Monitor, April 1999:
Similar to Yasunao Tone, though more detailed and introverted, one could say that Discmen represents in Portugal the ‘terrorist’ face of the DJ aesthetic. His material consists of a CD-player, several compact discs purchased from shops (which makes him an ‘apropriationist’) and cutting instruments. His modus operandi is also surprising but simple: mutilation of the CD surface and subsequent exploration of the resulting sonic accidents, namely skipping and repetition. Although the pieces are of short duration, his objective is to create hypnotic atmospheres through the insistence in a rhythmic pattern, however non-linear the sound-events may be. These appear broken and assymetric, testimony to the decomposition of the original music from within its corpse. The big difference regarding Tone is in the references: if the japanese sound artist prefers noise, Discmen clearly takes inspiration from techno.