"Future is an album which addresses mostly to lovers of very avant-gardist music"
1 Esperando, esperando (19:29) 2 Debod (23:35) 3 La habitacion del nino loco (9:22) 4 Who are you (10:34) 5 Quarantine (6:16)
23fish Music (DDL 69:16)
(Berlin School)
Future is the 2nd collaboration between the synth man Javi Canovas and the guitarist David Parades. Following the artistic and psychedelic bases established on Unforgiven Machine, released in 2010, the Spanish duet weaves an album where the music and its melodies bends on superb sequential movements which are caught up by envelopes to tones as much iridescent than silvered. Future is the essence of David Parades who breathes life into a strong experimental influence, him who is a fan of free improvisation. Autopsy of an album as stranger as attractive.
A fine line of metal tears the silence to introduce the weak hummings of the intergalactic machines. Dipped into the steel of sibylline tones, the intro of "Esperando, esperando" floats in a universe of abstraction where the breaths of synth, sometimes shrill and sometimes pleasant, got lost in the ambiguity of the intersidereal mechanisms. Fine pulsations emerge from industrialized slums. They drum beneath streaks a bit spectral, awakening quietly a rhythm which is duped by metallic rumblings. And in a fine transition, the rhythm of "Esperando, esperando" is switching shape to fits into a more ethereal approach with agile sequences which gallop under a sky fill of twisted sounds before escaping on a harder rhythm. It’s a rhythm in constant progression fed by sequences with undisciplined oscillations which skip and explode in a mixed bag of tones as metallic as opaline, feeding the very experimental approach of Future which is also reflected in the intro of "Debod" with the voice of David Parades which roars through the layers of an electric Ukulele. The result is rather striking. We would believe to hear a Shaman with a timber of voice a bit cybernetic who preaches in a cosmos left by its stars. Delicate synth layers wrap this atonal prayer, bringing a stalk of utopian heat to an oniric blackness. This obligatory phase is a prelude of a 5 minutes length to a superb sequential movement which shyly takes shape before exploding of its chaotic impulsions. Under a sky streaked and scratched by the iridescent and morphic claws of a mixture of synth/guitar to tones as cutting as intimidating, the rhythm of "Debod" hiccups and fights in front of the repeated attacks from the vicious and thunderous stratas. Sequences get subdivided and multiplied, crisscrossing in a fiery rhythmic chassé croisé which goes on up until the dawn of the tranquillity. It’s a relentless fight of more than 10 minutes before the peace calms the ardour with a divided approach. An approach where the majestic of the synth breaths is perturbed by the notes and the metallic rustles of a too omnipresent guitar. "La habitación del niño loco" is a purely experimental title where scattered strummed melodies roam among cracklings and mislaid tones. We would say melodies of a fragmented carousel which roll in loop under the dumbfounded glances of curious onlookers witnesses of a spectacular derailment. The effect is of an imaginary realism, in particular with a quite dire finale. Always trapped in a maze of tones made of lead in fusion, the intro of "Who are You" has difficulty in breathing. Chipped stratas are grazing the sound surface while a sequence emerges and waddles with ardour on a linear tempo. The iconoclastic noises lead room to breaths of guitars and afterward to lost notes which resound on a sequence became more undulating. A sequence which is crossing another one. Faster and more incisive it subdivides a rhythm became more complex which runs at a brisk pace, trying to escape the bites of guitar. "Quarantine" ends this 2nd rather audacious adventure of 23fish with a beautiful and long strummed lament. It’s a beautiful and sober melody which clashes in this musical decoration worth of a factory basement that is Future.
Future is an album which addresses mostly to lovers of very avant-gardist music. If there are some nice sequential kick offs, the album is above all a pretext to deepen the experimental music in an electronic structure of a kind of progressive Berlin School.
I quite enjoyed it, although my old eardrums grimaced, but I doubt that this album is within the reach of all ears. If the sequences of Javi Canovas are by moments explosive, David Parades' guitars are on the other hand corrosives, giving at times some superb music moments and on other times hard anti-music moments. To listen to at small doses and you will eventually like it …
Sylvain Lupari (January 20th, 2012) ***½**
Available at 23fish's Bandcamp