The House on Trubnaya is a 1928 comedy by Russian filmmaker Boris Barnet, assembled as a satire on the petite bourgeoisie that, in the aftermath of Lenin’s New Economic Policy (NEP), survived the 1917 revolution and surreptitiously kept exploiting the impoverished and their unions.
As the group Mão Morta redux, returning to their initial trio variant – now with musicians Adolfo Luxúria Canibal, Miguel Pedro and António Rafael –, they devise an original soundtrack for this masterpiece of silent Soviet cinema, to be played live throughout the exhibition.
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The band Mão Morta was formed during November 1984, in Braga, by Joaquim Pinto, Miguel Pedro and Adolfo Luxúria Canibal. After their debut in January 1985, the group earns the Award for Originality at the third Competition for Modern Music at the club Rock Rendez-Vous, which gets them their first positive critiques. They are invited to open for international bands such as Gun Club, Wire and Nick Cave, and begin touring around the country. In 1988 they record their first homonymous album, all-around well received and gathering the band wide praise bestowed by the most varied personalities from Nick Cave to Jello Biafra (Dead Kennedys).
In 1993, they produce Mutantes S.21, which goes on to become a hit, gaining the band interest from major labels and leading them to sign with BMG. In 1995, on their tenth anniversary, the group is awarded with the Braga County’s Silver Merit Medal. In 1997, Mão Morta direct Müller at the Hessischer Hof Hotel, a show about Heiner Müller’s poetry considered a revolutionary production for the band, not only collecting them sold out rooms, but also assuring their new original record would remain for several weeks at the top of the charts. Their 1998 album, Há Já Muito Tempo Que Nesta Latrina o Ar Se Tornou Irrespirável, is received with the same general excitement and commended by Situationists, having its ensuing tour end in a devastating mythical concert in Lisbon’s Coliseu dos Recreios, celebrating the group’s 15th anniversary. From 1999 onwards, after their 1986 debut in Vigo, Galicia, Mão Morta resumes concerts abroad (Spain, Italy, France, Brazil).
In 2001, they earn the Blitz Career Award and, in 2002, the group’s new album Primavera de Destroços wins the Blitz Award for Best Record of the Year whilst Mão Morta merits the Blitz Award for Best Band of the Year. In 2003, the group launches its own label Cobra, releasing Carícias Malícias – a live album from the notorious Mão Morta concerts. For their 20th anniversary in 2004, the band drops Nus, an album which would surpass all of their previous sales and come to be considered by the music press the Best Record of the Year. In the course of Müller at the Hessischer Hof Hotel, the band introduces Maldoror in 2007, their new musical show – this time with segments from the Comte de Lautréamont’s The Songs of Maldoror.
In 2009, invited by the Short-Film Festival in Vila do Conde, the group undertakes task of creating original music fitting 4 short-films by the experimental American filmmaker Maya Deren, subsequently released both in as a DVD and as a standalone album entitled Rituais Transfigurados. In 2012, at the closing ceremony for the European Capital of Culture, they stage Então Ficamos…, a community show incorporating 600 residents of the Guimarães county. They proceed with another community spectacle in 2014, Chão, consolidating 40 women from Paredes de Coura, where the band performs redux, their original trio format now comprising of Adolfo Luxúria Canibal, Miguel Pedro and António Rafael. That same year, Mão Morta introduces Pelo Meu Relógio São Horas de Matar which, appearing in the midst of a full-blown economic recession into a country overtaken by rigid austerity measures, breeds wide altercations and a lively debate within media and social networks, corroborating the group’s unique power to disturb the peaceful waters of Portuguese music.
In 2016, they play with Remix Ensemble, Casa da Música’s sinfonietta, in a series of shows commemorating Theatro Circo’s 100th anniversary, amassing massive popular and critical success, and boosting the release of the live album Nós Somos Aqueles Contra Quem os Nossos Pais Nos Avisaram the following year, which had been recorded during the opening night. After that release in 2017, Mão Morta goes on to reboot Mutantes S.21 on stage in its entirity, alongside illustrations purposefully created for the project and digitally manipulated in real time during the show.
One of those concerts would go on to spark the documentary Mutantes S.21 – 25 Years Later, debuted in 2019 during the opening night of the Short-Film Festival in Vila do Conde. Later in 2019, Mão Morta devises a dance spectacle, No Fim Era o Frio, encompassing 6 dancers and opening at the International Contemporary Dance Festival of Guidance, in Guimarães.
Their new original
album, released earlier this year, goes by the same title, joining 19 others in
the group’s discography, many of which regularly taking part in multiple
discussions of the all time best albums of Portuguese music.
Trailer