"Um em um assembles different techniques I've been working with for many years, giving them a status of material for improvisation and composition.

The piece is deliberately contained, linear and constructed by layers, with the aim to give the possibility to the listener to converge on each of its parts, with a sense of the detail. Microphones have been placed in a way to enhance the harmonics and all the particularities of every sound.

Coming after my last accordion solo Cinq bruissements (no fun productions, 2010), where microphones were almost inside the instrument, Um em um is somehow a step backwards in terms of visualisation and appreciation of my musical direction, but not in terms of audacity (there's more to come...). I needed a less crude approach, a kind of reformation, if not a clarification of what I've been setting up for more than 15 years.Um em um, translated by "one in one", expresses the way how an idea (material in time) can fit in another idea (structure in space), with a mutual and constant feedback."- Alfredo Costa Monteiro

"Perhaps a more traditional form of improvisation is to be found on the release by Alfredo Costa Monteiro, the accordion player. In recent times an accordion player lives downstairs, so at one point I am quite fed up with the music he produces (especially when he taps his feet to keep the rhythm), but Monteiro's music is something different altogether. He plays the accordion and objects, and perhaps one could also say he plays the 'accordion with objects' and also there is some sort of amplification in place. Whatever is the case really? Overtones are something that Monteiro uses a lot actually. Everything rings and sings here; sometimes it seems to come from rubbing objects onto a surface, such as the accordion, but also when he plays the instrument itself (the mechanics, the keys, the air of the instrument) Monteiro goes for long, sustaining sounds. He easily manages to this for quite some time, but there is a constant shift in this music, changing and bowing around. It's beyond twenty minutes when Monteiro approaches more regular playing and starts playing the accordion in a more improvised manner - as in 'quick'. He ends on a more contemplative note. In the course of these thirty-three minutes Monteiro took the listener on an excellent trip, going from beautiful overtone/feedback to sparse music to improvised heaviness and a moody ending. Beautiful recording from November last year!"-Frans de Waard, Vital Weekly

"A searing set from Costa Monteiro, credited with accordion and objects but generating sounds it's hard to imagine not incorporating bows, electronic, etc., but that's how he does on his axe of choice. It starts with keening overtones arriving in harshly shimmering waves, gradually drops into "standard" accordion range/pitch (though augmented with a sputtering gargle and other noises), maintaining the drone consistency but fluctuating mightily. Not so dissimilar in basic form to the his just previously reviewed collaboration with Lali Barrière but the acoustic nature of the sound production necessarily allows for more air, particulate matter and other irregularities that help to sustain extreme interest. The long winding-down process, beginning with a fantastic bellows-like section, is expertly handled, a gradual loss of respiratory functions, settling into a thin whistle. Very strong work, one of my favorite releases from Costa Monteiro."-Brian Olewnick, Just Outside