Presenting a new section in this blog called “Sound Pick” – self-picked musicians and sound artists for further exploration and analysis.
In the first edition of Sound Pick, I brought you all, sound artist and avant-garde experimental musician (the alternative tag to depict sound artists, just through “experimental” into a wall and it will give you sound-art), Francisco López. He is a Madrilenian born in 1964 and currently holds a big name in the sound art scenario. He is so influential that he produced sound pieces for more than 50 record labels. He is one of the personalities that resonate in the Spanish contemporary art scene. He has been awarded many prizes such as the First Prize for the Sound Art Competition of the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y Léon, three honorable mentions of the Prix Ars Electronica, and a Qwartz Award for the best sound anthology. I’ve met Francisco on 2 occasions: 1) on the radio program Ars Sonora, presented and directed by Miguel Álvarez-Fernández on Radio Clasica operated by Radio Nacional de España 2) on an exhibition in the Museo Nacional Centro de Arte Reina Sofia, which Francisco curated, called Audiosphere: Sound Experimentation 1980-2020.
The Piece
Part of the album Absolute Noise Ensemble, released in 2006 by Blossoming Noise, is a 2-side CD: Untitled Sonic Metaorganisms (5 tracks of live staged performances in complete darkness that took place in Barcelona – Sonar 2000; Abaixadors Deu; MACBA – Valencia – Observatori 00 -, and Montreal – Craig Pumping Station) and Untitled Sonic Microorganisms. The piece we are putting our hands in is the second side of the CD: a 57 minute-long track conceived, directed, composed, and recorded by López of digital edits of a vast number of raw sonic materials provided by many artists. For me, it was a journey in different sound atmospheres, where each part goes deeper into the inner sanctum of each one’s brains. I felt immersed in a sea of ambiguous darkness and dead space.
Notes:
28:05 – an amazing crescendo of noise and machinery following a sound drop of organic grotesque noise roaring in different directions.
33:00 – the sound of walking radio static
36:00 – the unexpected feeling of relief. emptiness. fear.
40:00 – a gunshot of static into your years. you’re left dead in a large room of distant noises. suddenly you wake up and realize it was just a dream, although there is another sound reality that follows a deep revisiting to your own fear.