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Francisco Lopez, "Untitled #104"
Premiered first at Sonar 2000, this release could very well be an impressionistic aural painting of a thunderstorm which gets closer and closer, unleashes its wrath and then breaks.
For over two minutes it (a 43 minute-long one-tracker) is completely silent. At the 2:10 mark, a stab of a guitar riff, ten seconds later another seemingly identical one. After a succession of twelve almost equally spaced apart stabs they begin to arrive more frequently, spaced apart now only by five seconds of silence. The frequency of attacks increases before long as it's now down to two seconds. 5¬Ω minutes into the disc the storm arrives with a barrage of guitarrorism from heavy metal riffs all played simultaneously. Layers upon layers appear to flow in but for all I know it might have been done all on a four-track.
I remember doing recordings like this as a teenager on a four-track recorder, so I can safely say it is quite possible to trick the listener into believing they're hearing more than what's really there. If your ears haven't bled dry by the 32¬Ω minute mark then congratulations! You're rewarded by silence again. The silence continues through the end of the disc, without surprise stabs thrown in to scare you. At the end I'm left with a few issues with this disc. Are we, the listener supposed to question the purpose of this CD? I am having a hard time trying to figure out what type of person would actually enjoy this and listen repeatedly over time. I'm also wondering if this was a knock-off for Lopez or did he spend years making this absolutely perfect. For me, this recording could be very handy at stop lights when some chump in the next car is blaring tacky rock-rap, tired classic rock or unbearable pop. I'm sure it could also possibly into uses like voice mail or promotional radio spots down at the station too.
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