[ reviews ]
34. untitled #119 [ • rec. 2001 ]> rel. 2004 - miniCD Lapilli, UK ()
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
This mini-CD by Francisco López is the first on Lapilli, a London-based label which promises upcoming releases from Richard Chartier and Steve Roden. With Untitled #119, Lapilli has got off to a flying start. López' music for electronics falls into two broad categories: compositions so whisper-quiet they seem like ghosts of themselves, or beautifully intense noise. Untitled #119 is of the latter persuasion. For the first minute or so of this seventeen-minute composition, the music rises towards the threshold of audibility, then it gets progessively louder until, at 15:29, it ends abruptly. But that's only part of the story. The architecture of López' compositions is often extremely simple, in the case of Untitled #119 it's nothing more than a crescendo. But the compensations are in the material, and the form that arises from that material. Essentially, Untitled #119 is a hellish industrial roar, saturated in overtones, that conceals within it shifting elements that change in character as the volume increases. There are intimations of 'purer' sounds within the noise and deep bells, throbbing organ tones, two-interval melodies that never quite reveal themselves, and perhaps aren't actually there at all. The effect is disquieting, but also curiously appealing. The Wire (2004)
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
Few electronic composers have proped the perception of sound with the same relentless intensity of Francisco López, much to the delight of his admirers and the disdain of his detractors. With his output split between music so near-silent that it dissolves in a room's ambience or deafening sheets of filtered white noise, López demands the sort of appreciation that treats his obsession with the absolute concrete image of sound as an article of faith - the sort of appreciation that regularly requires a conversion experience before his works fully reveal their inner logics. For López loyalists, 'untitled #119' appears as a stellar, if brief, compendium of it's creator's stronger suits. For sceptics, this 18-minute exercise in the thresholds of audibility could amount to that revelatory turning point in grasping López's more obtuse productions. Rising from a lengthy preliminary silence, 'untitled #119' rides out a crescendo that is elegant in its simplicity and forceful in its execution. Time-stretched echoes saturated with ghostly overtones collide and fold into one another like nighttime storm systems swelling over a barren desert. López uncovers a rich variety of shadings in his selection of hollow rumblings and tumbles through them with uncharacteristically dramatic flair. Viscous black masses of sound collide and combine as they flow into one another like creeping lava flows surging from a slow-groaning fault line. These dirty flows gather into a dense, boiling pool as the piece approaches its climax, a high pressure affair better described in barometric rather than musical terms. True to his inscrutable nature, López cuts to silence just before the presumed peak of intensity and gives the remainder of the disc to silence, resulting in a change of atmospheric pressure guaranteed to induce the auditory equivalent of the bends. This is López at the peak of his powers, turning electronic muisc's capacity to intensify sounds beyond recognition into the stuff of pure bodily experience. 'Untitled #119' makes for a potent, yet readily digestible, bit of sensory overload for fans and sceptics alike. Grooves magazine (USA), 2004
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
López cannot be a stranger to many of you. After the obligatory x minutes of silence, the CD kicks off with a recording of what sounds like a city. In this case we are told this is Havanna. For a while we are allowed to hear the city, become acquainted with its sonic spectrum. After a while, a machine-like hum starts to play a more and more prominent role while at the same time a very peculiar stereoscopic movement takes place. One has most likely to hear the piece on headphones in order to experience this. This effect has a very nauseating effect after a while, but then, those of you that are familiar with López' music, or that have ever attended a performance by him, the physical effects of his music will not be something unknown. After 15 minutes of whirling deeper and deeper into this strange world, the piece cuts to silence, most likely the most typical trademark of the López experience, which has to be experienced in order to be understood. Beautiful, yet not much of a surprise for people familiar with López, who himself is, as said, well-established, and therefore a little bit of an awkward first release for UK-based Lapilli. Phosphor Magazine (The Netherlands), 2004
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
I'm sitting in front of an audio representation of the minutes preceding the apocalypse and there's no way someone can convince me to move. A little more than 17 minutes is enough for López to show, once again, why he's so highly rated in today's soundscaping: from total silence, Francisco nurtures a slowly growing mass of burning frequencies that make me think about a nuclear catastrophe; something you hold your breath for, rather than listening. Just when the explosion seems imminent, everything stops abruptly, leaving you in exclusive company of your body sounds. A terrific miniature masterpiece. www.touchingextremes (Italy), 2005
This mini-CD by Francisco López is the first on Lapilli, a London-based label which promises upcoming releases from Richard Chartier and Steve Roden. With Untitled #119, Lapilli has got off to a flying start. López' music for electronics falls into two broad categories: compositions so whisper-quiet they seem like ghosts of themselves, or beautifully intense noise. Untitled #119 is of the latter persuasion. For the first minute or so of this seventeen-minute composition, the music rises towards the threshold of audibility, then it gets progessively louder until, at 15:29, it ends abruptly. But that's only part of the story. The architecture of López' compositions is often extremely simple, in the case of Untitled #119 it's nothing more than a crescendo. But the compensations are in the material, and the form that arises from that material. Essentially, Untitled #119 is a hellish industrial roar, saturated in overtones, that conceals within it shifting elements that change in character as the volume increases. There are intimations of 'purer' sounds within the noise and deep bells, throbbing organ tones, two-interval melodies that never quite reveal themselves, and perhaps aren't actually there at all. The effect is disquieting, but also curiously appealing. The Wire (2004)
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
Few electronic composers have proped the perception of sound with the same relentless intensity of Francisco López, much to the delight of his admirers and the disdain of his detractors. With his output split between music so near-silent that it dissolves in a room's ambience or deafening sheets of filtered white noise, López demands the sort of appreciation that treats his obsession with the absolute concrete image of sound as an article of faith - the sort of appreciation that regularly requires a conversion experience before his works fully reveal their inner logics. For López loyalists, 'untitled #119' appears as a stellar, if brief, compendium of it's creator's stronger suits. For sceptics, this 18-minute exercise in the thresholds of audibility could amount to that revelatory turning point in grasping López's more obtuse productions. Rising from a lengthy preliminary silence, 'untitled #119' rides out a crescendo that is elegant in its simplicity and forceful in its execution. Time-stretched echoes saturated with ghostly overtones collide and fold into one another like nighttime storm systems swelling over a barren desert. López uncovers a rich variety of shadings in his selection of hollow rumblings and tumbles through them with uncharacteristically dramatic flair. Viscous black masses of sound collide and combine as they flow into one another like creeping lava flows surging from a slow-groaning fault line. These dirty flows gather into a dense, boiling pool as the piece approaches its climax, a high pressure affair better described in barometric rather than musical terms. True to his inscrutable nature, López cuts to silence just before the presumed peak of intensity and gives the remainder of the disc to silence, resulting in a change of atmospheric pressure guaranteed to induce the auditory equivalent of the bends. This is López at the peak of his powers, turning electronic muisc's capacity to intensify sounds beyond recognition into the stuff of pure bodily experience. 'Untitled #119' makes for a potent, yet readily digestible, bit of sensory overload for fans and sceptics alike. Grooves magazine (USA), 2004
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
López cannot be a stranger to many of you. After the obligatory x minutes of silence, the CD kicks off with a recording of what sounds like a city. In this case we are told this is Havanna. For a while we are allowed to hear the city, become acquainted with its sonic spectrum. After a while, a machine-like hum starts to play a more and more prominent role while at the same time a very peculiar stereoscopic movement takes place. One has most likely to hear the piece on headphones in order to experience this. This effect has a very nauseating effect after a while, but then, those of you that are familiar with López' music, or that have ever attended a performance by him, the physical effects of his music will not be something unknown. After 15 minutes of whirling deeper and deeper into this strange world, the piece cuts to silence, most likely the most typical trademark of the López experience, which has to be experienced in order to be understood. Beautiful, yet not much of a surprise for people familiar with López, who himself is, as said, well-established, and therefore a little bit of an awkward first release for UK-based Lapilli. Phosphor Magazine (The Netherlands), 2004
Francisco López "untitled #119" (3"CD - Lapilli, 2004)
I'm sitting in front of an audio representation of the minutes preceding the apocalypse and there's no way someone can convince me to move. A little more than 17 minutes is enough for López to show, once again, why he's so highly rated in today's soundscaping: from total silence, Francisco nurtures a slowly growing mass of burning frequencies that make me think about a nuclear catastrophe; something you hold your breath for, rather than listening. Just when the explosion seems imminent, everything stops abruptly, leaving you in exclusive company of your body sounds. A terrific miniature masterpiece. www.touchingextremes (Italy), 2005