Pulsar is the name given to the distant neutron stars whose existence we witness due to the radiation (a radiation of light, but also sound) which they emit in regular cycles.

Pulsar is also the title of the fourth original album of the Portuguese quartet Danças Ocultas. In fact, it is also the name which the Portuguese language gives to the heartbeat, which is certainly a an inner rhythm. And as an additional curiosity, the word contains the title of another work by the group, the 1998 album entitled «Ar». We have thus a new work which speaks of a moment of greater naturalness and balance, which is evident in an outstanding composition work, a perfected execution and a dialogue among various musical languages and traditions. To sum up, it is a moment of opening up to the world.

What made Artur Fernandes, Filipe Cal, Filipe Ricardo and Francisco Miguel come together into a common project was a shared interest in recovering an obsolete instrument –the diatonic accordion, known in Portugal as the «concertina»– and the challenge of exploring, imagining and conceiving new musical languages, fully exploiting the possibilities of this 19th-century instrument.

They set out by adapting different classical compositions to the instrument -including Verdi’s Aida, several pieces by Bach and Strauss’ Also Sprach Zarathustra de. Only then did they begin to create a repertoire of their own.

In 1993 Artur Fernandes showed some recordings of Danças Ocultas to Rodrigo Leão, who keenly introduced the group to Gabriel Gomes, who at the time played accordion with Madredeus. Gabriel urged the group on to compose more original material and create its own musical language. In a famous evening in May 1994, they performed in Braga with Madredeus, and later spent the night playing their repertoire in the hotel toilets... while Gabriel Gomes recorded the session on DAT. This was the first step towards recording their first album, under the direction of sound engineer António Pinheiro da Silva, which was finally released in February 1996.

Unanimously regarded as one of the best albums of the year, this work –with a predominance of Artur Fernandes compositions– gave occasion to numerous concerts, including several appearances at international festivals.

This exposure to heterogeneous kinds of public raised in the musicians the need to apply a greater dynamics to the group’s sound, with an emphasis on the bass register. So they introduced a further technical change by creating an unlikely new instrument: the bass concertina, which was assigned to Filipe Ricardo.

With this new sound they recorded a second group of original compositions between December 1997 and January 1998, in which they showed a distinct intention of approaching other traditions, arts and aesthetic horizons.

Besides new concerts and appearances at festivals, this new aesthetic commitment brought new challenges. In 2001, choreographer Paulo Ribeiro invited the group to compose music for his company’s new show. In fact, the musicians had to integrate the choreography itself: the need for movement on the stage forced them to discard the traditional, static seated position, which implied both technology and performance alterations. The five original themes they created for the piece “Tristes Europeus» have gradually become a part of their repertoire. Meanwhile, the French label L’Empreinte Digitale published in 2002 a compilation of themes from their two first records, «Travessa da Espera»

The group opted to self-produce their third original album –a process which was reflected in the book «Alento», by Jorge P. Pires (text) and Duarte Belo (photographs). Finally recorded in Lisbon, in the O Circo Voador studios, in late 2003 and early 2004, «Pulsar» gives shape to that which Artur Fernandes summarised in one sentence: «We are a synthesis of experiences». Produced also by Gabriel Gomes and mixed by António Pinheiro da Silva, «Pulsar» relies on an ample choice of contributors, including, among others, the Syrian singer and instrumentalist and Abed Azrié, the Brazilian bandolinist Edu Miranda, the Gaiteiros de Lisboa, percussionists José Salgueiro and Rui Júnior, double-bassist António Augusto Aguiar, singer Maria João and pianist Mário Laginha.

By making reference to motives and experiences collected from different audiences around the globe, Danças Ocultas has succeeded in building a solid musical discourse. The fourteen tracks contained in this new album show the current state of a sound adventure which has already existed for a decade, always characterised by the progressive distancing from the “natural” register of the concertina, as well as by the search for a constant dialogue with the world of our time –and its different kinds of music. In this work, Danças Ocultas demonstrate how the concertina is still a sound-producing machine and, therefore, it is capable of inventing different kinds of future, of building different meanings.