Nothing sacred. That’s what the title of this fiery feat of improvisation means in English. It’s a fitting moniker, one that reflects the current state of the world and the incredible uncertainty brewing within the global military and economic powerhouse. As free speech, due process and the rule of law disappear, it’s clear that there isn’t much that is sacred anymore. This situation is centuries in the making, however. The eye of Christopher Columbus peering from the CD sleeve is a stark reminder that violence, oppression, and the lust for power are timeless “features” of human society. Before a note of music sounds, Brandon Lopez is making a political statement with Nada Sagrada; it is both loud and clear.
As a bassist, Lopez defies the sacred conventions of his instrument, inventing his own language with it. He plays every inch of the bass, slapping, scraping, hitting and wiping it as if it’s a large drum. He plucks, strums, bows and attacks the massive instrument with flurries of gesticulation. When choosing sparring partners, he looks for likeminded innovators, those who march through unique sonic territory without regard to what’s considered conventional. His septet combines many of these sound warriors into a single molten mind, the epitome of sonic groupthink.
Nada Sagrada began as “the gospel of sans,” a multimedia commission he performed with his septet at the 2023 Vision Festival, accompanied by Gill Arno’s live visual manipulations. Mixed down for pressing onto CD, the 40-minute-long composition takes up space without inducing claustrophobia. There are moments of dense thorniness where the full ensemble unleashes fiery energy, but these are balanced by quieter periods marked by a subset of the players probing each other with a refreshing subtlety.
This is a unique marriage of strings (Lopez’s bass, Mat Maneri’s viola and DoYeon Kim’s gayageum), electronics (Cecilia Lopez providing synthesis and Zeena Parkins playing electric harp), and drums (courtesy of Gerald Cleaver and Tom Rainey). Parkins and Cecilia Lopez conjure otherworldly textures that dance around and weave through deep arco drones and the sprightly plucks of the gayageum. Cleaver and Rainey lock onto each other, bringing about periods of intense polyrhythmic clatter. When the tide turns toward the introspective, the drummers fall back to a low energy orbit, adding spare frictional interjections and supportive patter when appropriate. Collectively, the players invoke their subconscious sensory network to realize this passionate and thought-provoking piece. It’s a call to arms, harkening back to the radical roots of fire music itself.
Chaines The King (Slip)
Tim Hecker Konoyo (Kranky)
Randall Dunn Beloved (Figure Eight)
Kreng Lowlife OST (Lakeshore)
Ian William Craig Thresholder (Fat Cat)
JPEGMAFIA Veteran (EQT)
Cecilia Lopez Red / Machine Fantasies (Experimental Intermedia)
Ana Calvi Hunter (Domino)
Jerusalem in My Heart (Constellation)
Julia Holter Aviary (Domino)
John Bence Kill (Grooming)
Prodigy No Tourists (BMG)
The Modern Jazz Quartet The Modern Jazz Quartet and Orchestra (Collectables)
Poil Mula Poil (Dur et Doux)
Jake Muir Lady’s Mantle (sferic)
Young Fathers Cocoa Sugar (Ninja Tune)
SOPHIE OIL OF EVERY PEARL'S UN-INSIDES (MSMSMSM/Future Classic)
God Damn Whores Heya Heya Heya Heya Ho! (Leafy Hand Records)
Jon Hopkins Singularity (Domino)
Cienfuegos Autogolpe (L.I.E.S.)
Aphex Twin Collapse (Warp)
Objekt Cocoon Crush (PAN)
Al momento de hablar de un duelo, lo primero que nos viene a la mente es un funeral: la pérdida como consecuencia de la muerte. El duelo no sólo se vive cuando muere alguien cercano, un duelo puede presentarse cuando perdemos un trabajo, terminamos una relación de pareja, nos alejamos de un amigo cercano, o incluso hay duelo al experimentar un cambio radical en nuestra vida.
Vemos entonces que lo característico del duelo es siempre una pérdida. No todas las perdidas, sin embargo, nos producen un estado de malestar, sino que varía de persona a persona y de momento a momento, ¿qué desencadena la relación pérdida-dolor? ¿a qué se refiere el proceso de duelo? ¿qué estamos perdiendo?
El duelo y el dolor desencadenado están relacionados con nuestra libido. Todo aquello que “nos afecta”, “nos interesa” o “es importante” tiene depositado cierta cantidad de líbido y por ello forma parte de nuestra vida. Cuando algo pasa de largo y no tiene mayor relevancia, es porque no se le depositó una cantidad que permitiera hacerlo significativo. El proceso de duelo se refiere al reacomodo de esta libido. Teníamos depositada libido sobre algo importante y, al momento de perderlo por cualquier circunstancia, esa libido regresa a nosotros y nos genera dolor y malestar.
Las pérdidas también implican un reacomodo de nuestra posición simbólica y de todos nuestros lazos. Esto quiere decir que, al momento de perder algo o a alguien, no sólo se vive el duelo por esa persona o cosa, sino que también están implicadas las relaciones y el contexto que le rodea.
Vamos viendo que el duelo es un proceso muy complejo. Por un lado está el regreso de libido, que genera dolor, y por otro lado está el reacomodo de las demás relaciones vinculadas con la pérdida, lo cuál es un progreso delicado y conflictivo. Para superar el duelo, deben construirse nuevas vías para depositar la libido que regresó ante la pérdida. Estos procesos son inconscientes, en la superficie nosotros sólo sentimos el dolor de la pérdida. El dolor está ahí como una señal de todo el movimiento ocurriendo debajo; es importante dar oportunidad al dolor y a todos los procesos inconscientes a que sigan su curso sin tratar de obstruirlo mediante “olvidarnos” u obligarnos a dejarlo ir.
Cecilia Lopez and Ingrid Laubrock — Maromas (Relative Pitch)
Freedom so often arrives with the magnetic precision of stealth, a small stone in a hailstorm or a knowing word between friends. Maromas, the new collaboration between saxophonist Ingrid Laubrock and synthesist Cecilia Lopez, often functions in that communicative sphere, as is the case at 1:43 of “Sentient Pipes.” It all begins as simply as Laubrock accenting one note in a phrase and Lopez emitting a similar pitch. That tone is bandied about like a tennis ball or a beloved phrase, and it’s difficult to tell if Lopez grabbed and modified it or if it was generated in some other synchronous way. Both artists then expand it outward, building rose-petal-fragile but crystal-clear counterpoint from those tiny dialogic pointillisms.
The disc brims and bristles with similar moments. “A la vuelta de Greenwich” begins with the grinding of what sounds like processed soprano saxophone which then dips and dives forward with Lopez’s response, delivered in swooping curves. It’s so tempting to pull a Hendrix or Prince sonic reference or two out of Laubrock’s quasi-linear distorto-shredding, but her playing is equally atomistic, evident as “Fabulations” stutters onward. The collaborators occupy an entirely different space in “Don’t Believe It”’s murky opening drones, shards and atoms replaced by sustains while the minuscule elements of microtone and breath vanguard themselves with startling clarity. Each overtone and harmonic bubbles to the surface of a brew equal parts spice and strength and garnished with amplified attacks and piquant saxophone scales at an almost tender volume.
It would be difficult to imagine a more symbiotic approach to duetting. The players’ respective sound pallets are remarkably close, unnervingly integrated in terms of articulation and sonic envelope. If the opening conglomerate of “I Don’t See It” doesn’t convince, as it inhabits a shuddering world of rhythmic ambiguity even as pitches swirl in and out of distorted focus, nothing will. Best of all though, the sounds are all but bone-dry. So many electroacoustic collaborations rely far too heavily on reverb and delay, presumably to enhance repetition. They travel down long corridors of memory, their edges and intimacies obscured to the point of ineffectuality. Laubrock and Lopez confidently square each gesture against a backdrop of something that isn’t really silence but often threatens to be. Each musician’s prickly and mellifluous spontaneities hit the ear with a stunning directness that adds to their musicality and allows all of that precious counterpoint to be heard. Repeated audition shows the moments of freedom to be components of a larger and wonderfully formed dialogue fashioned of concise and adventurous interactions, each moment a kind of aphoristic poetry in sound as direct as it is poignant.
The person who first said that no man is an island probably thought that they were making an irreducible point about isolation. But the island, however distant it is from other bodies of land, isn’t so much isolated as it is part of a larger environment containing similar and dissimilar elements. You need only to walk on a beach after a storm to see evidence of how sea and wind act upon land, and you need only to pay attention in the 21stcentury to see how raising temperatures somewhere affect water levels and weather patterns everywhere. Red, a piece that Argentine electronic musician, composer, and installation artist Cecilia Lopez has been presenting for several years now, makes this point using sound.
Red is an idea that can be conveyed as an installation, a solo performance, or a piece played by several musicians. All versions share certain essential ingredients. You need a room with a reasonably high ceiling and a means to suspend one or more nets, which are woven from speaker wire. Inside the nets are resonant acoustic instruments; this recording features two, one full of double basses and another full of drums. The microphones inside one net pick up the sounds of the enclosed instruments and generate feedback, and, since basses and drums can double as speakers, those sounds can be fed into the instruments in the other net. Each net is capable of making sound on its own and its vibrations can induce changes in that sound, but, for good measure, a person can also swing the net to induce more changes.
Red (DB) documents a version with musicians. The composer plays synthesizer, Brandon Lopez (no relation) plays bass and Gerald Cleaver plays drums. You can watch them performing the piece on YouTube and Lopez’ website, and it’s edifying to watch how it’s done. The drummer and bassist keep their eyes on the score, playing with a restraint quite unlike the bruising free jazz that they play in the Brandon Lopez Trio. A movement artist and the composer give the nets a nudge every now and then, and the latter also tends to her synthesizer, shaping a steady, machine-like grind. Observation makes clear how each action, whether guided or spontaneous, influences the evolving sound field.
But the item under consideration here is the recording. Without visual cues, it’s hard to say what comes from the nets and what’s coming out of the synthesizer. The bass, played with abrupt drags of the bow, groans and distorts, while Cleaver favors friction and unaccented beats. Listeners who dig coarse texture will luxuriate, but if you dig tunes, you may well get lost. Shudder presses against rumble, while hums undulate within. It all feels like even more of an abstraction than your average CD of improvised music, but that’s an observation, not a criticism. As the piece progresses, it’s easy to forget that people and instruments are involved, and to feel like you’re hearing some sped-up broadcast of the earth’s plates grinding against each other. Which goes to show that even when your experience of Red lacks the opportunity to witness how it’s done, its systemic essence is undeniable. No island, after all, is separate from the world.
Hoy os traemos esta ingeniosa forma de presentar el curriculum de una farmacéutica. Cecilia López Acedo es una farmacéutica en paro que decidió darle una oportunidad al diseño y Coti Larrote el diseñador que ideó esta fantástica idea. Juntos han creado esta maravilla de presentación de un CV.
Today we bring this ingenious way of presenting the curriculum of a pharmaceutical. Cecilia López Acedo is a pharmaceutical unemployed who decided to give an opportunity to design and Coti Larrote designer who devised this fantastic idea. Together they have created this wonderful presentation of a CV.
