Plux Quba

Nuno Canavarro was raised in Lisbon, Portugal where he played keyboards in several local bands as a teenager. He composed the music for Plux Quba after studying composition at Institute of Sonology in the Netherlands for two years.^[1] Speaking about his time there, Canavarro noted that "There existed an incredible movement in terms of concerts, exhibitions, electro-acoustic music. I did not have the calmness, the concentration to do anything there. When I arrived, I wanted to work quickly."

Upon returning to Lisbon, Canavarro recorded the album in his home studio, with the aid of a Fostex 8-track tape recorder and an Ensoniq Mirage, a then state-of-the-art 8-bit digital sampling keyboard that he filled with pre-recorded, highly modified samples of television programs, radio voices, ethnic music tapes, and a melodica. Canavarro remarked on how the equipment affected the recording process: "With an eight-track recorder, and that system that lets a person turn anything into an instrument, I started to create a structure from it. Record yourself on a track, and then, later, start to add other things. You can, for example, record one track, and then another six or seven around it, and then finally erase the first one, these kinds of tricks. Or you could put stuff in reverse and record at different speeds. At the time, that was it."^[1]

Around this period, Canavarro previewed Plux Quba at a concert held at Instituto Franco-Português. This caught the attention of musician João Peste, who offered to release the album through his private press record label Ama Remanta. The vinyl master was cut directly from Canavarro's original tape, with no post-production work, although three songs had to be left off due to lack of cutting space. 500 copies of Plux Quba were pressed onto vinyl, though Canavarro was unsure how many actually sold, and that costs of production or the signature of a contract "did not exist". Canavarro contributed liner notes to the album, instructing listeners to play the record through speakers which are separated from each as far as possible at a low volume, starting from the track "Wask" onwards. The album's "enigmatic" title was chosen to "make it even weirder".^[2]

Despite Plux Quba being received positively by the local Lisbon music scene, its small circulation meant that it quickly fell into obscurity.^[1] Canavarro would go on to record one further album, a collaboration with Carlos Maria Trindade entitled Mr. Wollogallu, in 1991, before pursuing a career composing film soundtracks.

In 1991, Plux Quba was introduced by Christoph Heemann to several musicians, including Jim O'Rourke and Jan St. Werner of Mouse on Mars, during an informal listening party in Cologne, Germany.^[1] O'Rourke in particular grew to become a fan of the album, and a few years later met up with Rafael Toral, a musician and mutual friend of Canavarro, to track down the album's master tapes. O'Rourke eventually contacted Canavarro, and learned that he made the album whilst largely unaware of the developments happening elsewhere in electronic music, such as the ambient work of Brian Eno.^[1] With Canavarro's permission, Plux Quba was digitally remastered by Toral and released through O'Rourke's Moikai label in 1998, reinstating the three tracks that were left off the original pressing.^[1] The album would later be reissued again in 2015 through Drag City.