As a bigbeliever in sensory deprivation in pursuit of a better listeningexperience, Francisco López has gratiously included a blindfold with his latest one-track live CD. As criticalanalyses of blindfolds go, my review is damning.
Alien8 Recordings
The flimsy materialof a blindfold does nothing to restrict vision apart from making things a littledarker. Dispensing with the blindfold I decided to just listen to theCD in the dark. What the piece of cloth does for blindfolds, Lopez doesthe opposite for music. Live in Montreal is mesmerising. A lowhum pervades the piece, creating an atmosphere of warmth and danger. Itsounds like heavy machinery working deep beneath the ground and indeedthe room tremors like there is something pulsing from below. Lopezinterweaves other hums and deep booms on top of the main sound, attimes I felt I was in a deep cavern and something was coming towards me(think of HP Lovecraft writing the scene with the trembling cup ofwater in Jurassic Park). When Lopez finally lulled me into somesort of security he releases the odd unpredictable clamour orunexpected silence to shock me back into paying attention. Lopez usesthe old combination of found sounds and drones in a refreshing manner,what appears to be a recording of rain on a metal roof is processedsubtly to become what I imagine electricity firing through your nervoussystem would sound like. The one caveat with Live in Montrealis that it needs a decent stereo system, the range of sounds Lopez usesis immense. At times the graphic equaliser on my stereo couldn’t evenregister the sounds. Lopez is incredibly skilled in creating sonicsculptures and this album has captured his talent very faithfully.
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