Video reseña de "El idioma de las luciérnagas" por Was Ist Das?

I invite you to see this video review HERE.

Thank you very much Was Ist Das? for the lovely images and words!

F.

A wonderful article by Rockdelux!

Federico Durand – Rockdelux (2016)

November 15, 2016

ROCKDELUX MAGAZINESPAIN, NOVEMBER 2016

(english translation below)

LA SENDA MÁGICA
Como un artesano, Federico Durand ha ido perfeccionando el tallado de sus melodías como si fueran cuentas de cristal. Fabricado a partir del arrullo de viejas cintas de casete, teclados y cajitas de música, su sonido revela un mundo de una belleza inocente y apaciguada que parece discurrir como en un cuento.

Las manzanas del barrio de Recoleta se atrincheran contra la escasez que asola Buenos Aires y el resto de Argentina. Sus fachadas monumentales son vestigios del esplendor comercial de las primeras décadas del siglo XX. Es julio de 2014 y Federico Durand me guía entre esas calles señoriales que desaguan en una inmensa plaza palaciega, a escala americana. Le resulta difícil contener el entusiasmo: hace poco que ha vuelto de Japón, donde ha compartido kilómetros, té y horas de música junto con Stephan Mathieu, Tomoyoshi Date, Chihei Hatakeyama, Corey Fuller y Taylor Deupree, quien parece decidido a editar un disco en el que Durand lleva meses enfrascado. En los dos años que han transcurrido desde aquella tarde, Federico ha visto nacer a su primera hija, ha dejado su trabajo como profesor de Literatura en un colegio y ha abandonado Buenos Aires para instalarse con su familia en una casita en las montañas de la provincia de Córdoba. En ese tiempo también han visto la luz “Jardín de invierno” (Spekk, 2016) y “A través del espejo” (12k, 2016), aquel álbum del que hablaba entonces, que curiosamente comparte título con uno de los temas de “La estrella dormida” (White Paddy Mountain, 2014). ‘Algo de lo que se mostraba y ocultaba en ‘La estrella dormida’ florece en ‘A través del espejo’. Por un lado, el entresueño de la primera estrella de la tarde; por otro, el mundo de los espejos. El cielo estrellado es también un espejo donde nos podemos mirar”, asegura Federico. “El corte que lleva el nombre del disco es muy antiguo. Lo encontré en una casete grabada con mi portaestudio de cuatro canales cuando estaba organizando la mudanza a nuestra nueva casa en las sierras. Lo único que hice fue transcribirlo tal cual a la computadora. No recuerdo cuándo lo grabé, pero el día que lo descubrí y apreté ‘play’ supe que su sonido casi mágico era un mensaje que yo mismo me había enviado hace años, sin darme cuenta. Fue el hilo del que fui tirando hasta hacer que apareciera toda la trama. Los discos se van revelando de este modo, muy lentamente. Todo va apareciendo. Tengo esa fe”.

Federico ha ido definiendo un mundo de porcelana a través de su música. Sus discos son espacios de una belleza tan ilusoria como inocente, que parte de un momento de epifanía que da un sentido, una narrativa, a su poesía sonora. Tanto “El estanque esmeralda” (Spekk, 2014) como “El idioma de las luciérnagas” (Desire Path, 2013), “El libro de los árboles mágicos” (Home Normal, 2012) o “El éxtasis de las flores pequeñas” (Own, 2011) surgieron a partir de recuerdos y visiones, dotando a la naturaleza de un misterio intangible. Todos remiten a la misma búsqueda de un instante de luz, de pureza. Son piezas del mismo mosaico, variaciones sobre una melodía ancestral, multiplicadas en los reflejos infinitos de un abalorio. Federico lo cree así: “Para mí la música es un espacio sagrado. Es el jardín donde me pierdo y a la vez me encuentro. Aprendí que para hacer música hay que saber escuchar. Y que, como quería Keats, debo ser fiel a mi imaginación; que la poesía, la creación, debe brotar tan naturalmente como el árbol da hojas”.

“A través del espejo” profundiza en un ejercicio de depuración en el que Federico, que ha dejado de recurrir a las grabaciones de campo, lleva sumido algún tiempo. “Cada día creo más en el esplendor de lo pequeño, de lo esencial”, proclama. Su poder evocador contagia incluso las imágenes que suscitan títulos de piezas como “Linternas junto a la laguna” o “El grillo de nácar”, ayudando a colorear la historia. “Siempre sentí fascinación por los espejos porque reflejan y a la vez velan lo que muestran”, reconoce. “El título del disco también puede remitir a Lewis Carroll y su Alicia, pero lo cierto es que durante el tiempo en que lo grababa estaba obsesionado con la experiencia de enfrentar dos espejos: como en un ‘loop, la imagen se repite hacia el infinito, volviéndose cada vez más verde y difusa. Quería experimentar ese universo de los espejos a través del sonido”.

“Jardín de invierno” debe su título al espacio favorito de Federico en su casa en las sierras. Allí es donde prefiere trabajar en su música. Es su disco más delicado y un paso más en el esencialismo al que parece estar abocada su música, como una semilla de diente de león disolviéndose en el aire de la mañana.

Aquel viaje a Japón de hace dos años también propició “Magical Imaginary Child” (White Paddy Mountain, 2015), un disco compartido con Chihei Hatakeyama con el que Federico amplió un círculo de colaboraciones que incluye proyectos junto a Tomoyoshi Date (Melodía) o Nicholas Szczepanik (Every Hidden Color). “Me hospedaba en casa de Chihei y una tarde hicimos una serie de grabaciones. Entre cada sesión bebíamos café en el jardín de su casa, que tiene piedras cubiertas de musgo y el kami de una rana. Su barrio es un lugar silencioso a las afueras de Tokio”, recuerda Federico, antes de relatar cómo rescató algunas tomas dedicadas a su abuelo materno, recogidas en “Música para Manuel” (Hibernate, 2015): “Mi abuelo Manuel fue mi mejor amigo. Era de Almería y me contaba historias de España, de su trabajo como mecánico de aviones de hélice para Aerolíneas Argentinas. Me llevó por primera vez a los bosques del sur de Argentina y me enseñó una forma de ver que, gracias a Dios, todavía perdura y me guía en cada cosa que hago. Tenía una imaginación y una sensibilidad únicas, también un gran sentido del humor. Perdió a sus padres siendo muy pequeño, pero nunca hablaba de ello”.

(GOOGLE TRANSLATE TO ENGLISH)
apologies for the oddness that often happens.

THE MAGICAL PATH
As a craftsman, Federico Durand has been refined carving of his melodies as if they were glass beads. Manufactured from cooing of old cassette tapes, keyboards and music boxes, sound reveals a world of innocent beauty and appeased that seems to run like a story.

The barrio de Recoleta neighborhood barricade themselves against shortages plaguing Buenos Aires and the rest of Argentina. Its monumental facades are remnants of commercial splendor of the early twentieth century. It is July 2014 and Federico Durand guides me among those stately streets that empty into a huge palatial square, American scale. He finds it hard to contain his excitement: only recently has returned from Japan, where he has shared kilometers, tea and hours of music with Stephan Mathieu, Tomoyoshi Date, Chihei Hatakeyama, Corey Fuller and Taylor Deupree, who seems determined to release an album in which it leads Durand engaged for months. In the two years that have passed since that afternoon, Federico’s wife has given birth to her first child, and he has left his job as a professor of literature at a school and has left Buenos Aires to settle with his family in a small house in the mountains of the province of Cordoba. In that time releases of his have also seen the light: “Winter Garden” (Spekk, 2016) and “A Través del Espejo” (12k, 2016), that album was talking about then, curiously shares title with one of the themes of “The star asleep “(White Paddy Mountain, 2014). ‘Some of what was shown and hiding in’ The Sleeping Star ‘blooms in’ Through the Looking Glass’. On the one hand, the doze of the first evening star; on the other, the world of mirrors. The starry sky is a mirror in which we can look, “says Federico. “The court named the album is very old. I found it on a cassette with my portastudio four track when I was organizing the move to our new home in the mountains. All I did was transcribe such to the computer. I do not remember when I recorded it, but the day I discovered it and I pressed ‘play’ I knew his almost magical sound was a message that I had sent me years ago, without realizing it. It was the thread I was pulling up to make it appear the whole plot. The discs are revealed thus very slowly. Everything is appearing. I have that faith.”

Federico has been defining a world of porcelain through his music. His records are spaces of beauty as illusory as innocent, that part of a moment of epiphany that gives a sense, a narrative, his sound poetry. Both “The Emerald Pond” (Spekk, 2014) as “The language of the Fireflies” (Desire Path, 2013), “The Book of magic trees” (Home Normal, 2012) or “Ecstasy of small flowers” ( Own, 2011) arose from memories and visions, giving the nature of an intangible mystery. All refer to the same search for a moment of light and purity. They are pieces of the same mosaic, variations on an ancient melody, multiplied in the infinite reflections of a trinket. Federico thinks: “For me, music is a sacred space. It is the garden where I lose myself and find myself again. I learned that to make music must listen. And, as I wanted Keats, I must be true to my imagination; poetry, creation, must come as naturally as the tree gives leaves “.

“A Través del Espejo” delves into a clean-up exercise in which Federico, who has stopped resorting to field recordings, takes some time. “Every day I think more in the splendor of small, in essence,” he proclaims. Its evocative power spread even images aroused titles of pieces as “lanterns along the lagoon” or “Cricket nacre”, helping to color the story. “I always felt fascination with mirrors that reflect and also watch what they show,” he admits. “The album title can also refer to Lewis Carroll and Alice, but the truth is that during the time when the recording was obsessed with the experience of facing two mirrors: as in a ‘loop, the image is repeated to infinity , becoming greener and diffuse. I wanted to experience mirrors that universe through sound. ”

“Winter Garden” owes its title to favorite Federico space at home in the mountains. That’s where he prefers to work on his music. It is his most delicate disk and a step in the essentialism that seems doomed his music, like a dandelion seed dissolving into the morning air.

That trip to Japan two years ago also led “Magical Imaginary Child” (White Paddy Mountain, 2015), a shared Chihei Hatakeyama record that Federico expanded a circle of collaborations that includes projects with Tomoyoshi Date (Melody) or Nicholas Szczepanik (Every Hidden Color). “I Chihei staying at home and later made a series of recordings. Between each session we drank coffee in the garden of his house, which has mossy stones and the kami of a frog. Your neighborhood is quiet on the outskirts of Tokyo place, “recalls Frederick, before recounting how he rescued some dedicated to his maternal grandfather takes, collected in” Music for Manuel “(Hibernate, 2015):” My grandfather Manuel was my best friend . It was Almeria and tell me stories about Spain, his work as an aircraft propeller mechanic for Aerolineas Argentinas. It took me first to the forests of southern Argentina and showed me a way to see that, thank God, still lingers and guide me in everything I do. He had a unique imagination and sensitivity, also a great sense of humor. He lost his parents when he was very young, but never talked about it. ”

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Muchas gracias Juan Monge y Rockdelux por la escucha atenta y las palabras sensibles! F.

A beautiful review by Cyclic Defrost (Australia)

"El idioma de las luciérnagas" by Cyclic Defrost

Presumably sometime on the tour, with Tomoyoshi Date in Europe 2012 to promote the collaborative project Melodia’s album Saudades, numerous field recordings were made, some in Zurich. There are recordings from Muñiz and La Serranita in Argentina which form a good part of this album. That’s speculative, but writing about abstract music is hardly a game of facts. You can say it is composed of music box, acoustic guitar, Tübingen-bells, toy piano, tape-loops and that Durand manipulates the walkman, minidisc, DS and Electroharmonix 2880 stereo multi-track looper. But that’s just the kit list. Mastering has been performed by James Plotkin, an American guitarist known more for his work with death metal, grindcore and post metal but whose has a wide body of interesting collaborations.

EL idioma de las luciérnagas (The language of fireflys) is what one might describe as an example of environmental sound art. It amps up the field recordings, specifically the ones containing crickets, bells, birds, water, winds and then goes to town on various procession instruments and their looping possibilities building up a wall of tones. It is simple and effective as a strategy and depends greatly on Durands well-tuned ear that pushes the tones brightness to the brim with a deftness that has them absorbed into the organic surroundings. As if they were naturally there. Such plays with chimes and toy piano are an organic artifice but demonstrate that Durand has an affinity or draws a good deal of inspiration from nature as have his previous albums and the collaboration with Tomoyoshi Date. There are moment in the album where the tones are drawn out into drones and layered and manipulated before others overlay and produce different resonant possibilities. A guitar track Mumi offers a hesitant and scitterish use of the looping technique and becomes quickly intertwined with bells, creaking and static sounds. A favourite is the title track El idioma de las luciérnagas rendered with a unremittingly melancholy music box that draws out its tones and adds water and cricket field recordings. It is sort of a wonderfully beautiful sadness. Which sums up the conveyed emotion of some of the album which is mostly forms of environmentally constructed sound scapes.

Innerversitysound

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Thank you very much Innerversitysound & Cyclic Defrost for this wonderful review! F.

"El idioma de las luciérnagas" in the Top 20 Drone Records Of 2013 by Anti-Gravity Bunny (USA)

Estoy muy feliz porque mi disco "El idioma de las luciérnagas" aparece entre los 20 discos del 2013 destacados por la increíble página ANTI-GRAVITY BUNNY (USA).

Muchas gracias!

Hello! I am very happy because my new album "El idioma de las luciérnagas" is in the Top 20 Drone Records made by wonderful ANTI-GRAVITY BUNNY.

Thank you very much!

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8. EL IDIOMA DE LAS LUCIERNAGAS (Desire Path Recordings)

“…a record of subtle complex sounds, finding wonder in the smallest audio spaces and turning a regular peaceful morning into a world of bright white bliss.”

TOTALLY upping his game from the last record I heard him on, the collab with Nicholas Szczepanik as Every Hidden Color, this one takes the field recording thing to heart, with crickets gently chirping under chimes, which I assume are being played intentionally, but come off as though you’ve stumbled upon one of life’s beautiful accidents. Everything is played with such grace that it seems natural & effortless, something I haven’t heard from very many artists.

"El idioma de las luciérnagas" reviewed by Seek Sick Sound (France)

LE LANGAGE DE LUCIOLES

Des carillons emmitouflés de crissements de criquets et de bruissements de feuilles d’arbres s’agitent paisiblement pendant que la nature gagne un repos bien mérité. Le pouls ralentit tandis que le souffle s’adoucit parmi les réverbérations éclairées perdues dans l’immensité de la nuit. Le temps, lui, perd de sa signification, et s’échappe de cette nouvelle réalité peuplée d’insectes luminescents.
Le langage des lucioles, traduction littérale d’El Idioma De Las Luciérnagas, dernière œuvre en date de Federico Durand, se niche directement dans ces cavités inexplorées de l’imaginaire, neurasthéniques tout en restant hypnotiques. Publié sur le très sélectif Desire Path Recordings avec environ une sortie tous les six mois, ce dernier long format est disponible en vinyle et en digital depuis septembre et fait suite au féérique El Libro De Los Árboles Mágicos paru l’année dernière sur Home Normal ou encore au nostalgique Saudade, issu de sa collaboration avec Tomoyoshi Date et chroniqué ici plus tôt dans l’année.

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Please, read this wonderful review HERE.

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Merci beaucoup Seek Sick Sound and Raphael Lenoir! F.

Beat Magazine (Germany)

Buenas tardes amigos! Comparto la reseña-haiku de "El idioma de las luciérnagas" aparecida en la revista "Beat Magazine" (Alemania), escrita por Tobias Fischer.

This beautiful, little-haiku-like review of "El idioma de las luciérnagas" was made by talented Tobias Fischer!

Dankeschön!

F.

A beautiful review of "El idioma de las luciérnagas" by Music Won't Save You (Italy)

FEDERICO DURAND "El Idioma de las luciérnagas" 

DESIRE PATH RECORDINGS (USA)

By Music Won't Save You

C’è un filo di continuità tra la passeggiata di Federico Durand nel bosco incantato di “El libro de los árboles mágicos” e le sette nuove istantanee raccolte in “El idioma de las luciérnagas”. Con la danza inafferrabile delle scintille si concludeva appunto il lavoro precedente e al loro fluttuare fugace e irregolare è concettualmente dedicata l’ultima creazione dell’artista argentino, ancora frutto di modulate intersezioni tra field recordings e minute particelle elettroacustiche.

Benché gli elementi che formano “El idioma de las luciérnagas” non differiscono in maniera significativa rispetto a quanto in precedenza realizzato da Durand, dalla sua magica scatola sonora fuoriesce questa volta un universo di loop, note acustiche ed esili filtraggi elettronici organico e coeso come non mai. Ne risultano brevi sinfonie naturalistiche costellate da suoni evanescenti e magici come scintille, dotate di fascino imperscrutabile come lucciole in una sera primaverile, pervase da un romanticismo che nei rugiadosi frammenti di pianoforte e nella brillante eco dei campanellini trova perfetto complemento a soffi ambientali spontanei e leggeri come un respiro.

È la natura che vive e si trasforma quella impressa da Durand nei solchi del solo vinile nel quale è pubblicato il disco, con una delicatezza che non necessita di ricorrere a iterazioni droniche né a progressioni ambientali. “El idioma de las luciérnagas” è piuttosto una fedele rappresentazione della pacifica e irripetibile meraviglia di un singolo istante di luce, in completa simbiosi tra gli elemento.

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Grazie mille Music Won't Save You per la bella recesione! F.

"El idioma de las luciérnagas" reviewed by Anty-Gravity Bunny (USA)

"El idioma de las luciernagas" by Anti-Gravity Bunny (USA)

I first heard about Argentina’s finest Federico Durand through his superb collaboration with Nicholas Szczepanik under the guise of EVERY HIDDEN COLOR. This debut LP of Durand’s (translated to The Language Of The Fireflies) takes that pristine sound from LUZ and amplifies it to a level of pure magic. This is a record of subtle complex sounds, finding wonder in the smallest audio spaces and turning a regular peaceful morning into a world of bright white bliss. Intimate field recordings of wildlife chatter and drifting chimes are in perfect company amidst minimal tonal shimmer, delicate softness, humble piano twinkling, and emotional dreams. This is a damn near perfect drone record, kicking introverted euphoria into uncharted territory. As is all things with Desire Path, El Idioma is limited, so don’t sleep on this.

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Thank you very much Anti-Gravity Bunny for this heartfelt review!

F.

Mumi

Mumi, the cat.

A beautiful review by Textura (Canada)

Federico Durand: El idioma de las luciérnagas 

Desire Path Recordings

If ever a recording was made to be listened to at a particular time of day, it's Federico Durand's El idioma de las luciérnagas. And what time of day? Twilight, the peaceful time after sunset and before dark—or, as it's also called, gloaming, the word sometimes used in speaking of Richard Strauss's “Im Abendrot” (At sunset). Durand's choice of title, then, for his fourth album (and first on vinyl) is certainly apt as it translates as “The Language of Fireflies”—music less meant to be listened to in those hours when day turns to night than absorbed during the stillness that settles in during that time.

Don't be fooled by the seeming simplicity of the music: Durand's material is potent, as listeners familiar with his past releases on Spekk, Home Normal, and Own Records have discovered. For this thirty-seven-minute outing, he used music box, acoustic guitar, Tübingen-bells, tape-loops, and toy piano (among other things) to create the seven pieces and incorporated field recordings made in Muñiz, La Serranita, and Zürich. Durand even goes so far as to supply crickets, accentuating further not only the ideal time to listen to the recording but the location, too: outdoors, preferably a nature setting far away from and untainted by urban noise.

In fact, the atmospheres the field recordings contribute to the album are so central a component that at times it feels more like the musical elements are augmenting them rather than the other way around. In that regard, the cricket chirp that rhythmically persists throughout “Los niños izan las estrellas con hilos de plata” and “El idioma de las luciérnagas” is equal in importance to the respective settings' chiming bell tones and music box tinkles, while chattering birds and piano plinks assert themselves to similarly equal degrees during “Huemul.” While the peaceful and placid mood remains in place in all seven pieces, Durand wisely introduces variety by changing the focal points within the arrangements from piece to piece. In “Mumi,” for example, it's acoustic guitar whereas it's piano or music box elsewhere.

El idioma de las luciérnagas truly is music that encourages you to close your eyes and be transported by the music. Listening to the blurred tones softly whistling through the haze of “El espejo de mil años” evokes the calm of a late-July evening, while “Una ciudad al pie de las montañas” conjures the image of someone lying in a hammock on a summer day surrounded by birds and soothed by the sounds of soft music drifting into earshot from somewhere nearby.

October 2013

*

Thank you very much Textura for this wonderful review! 

F.

"El idioma de las luciérnagas" reviewed by A Closer Listen

A Closer Listen

Pale blue skies start to turn a shade darker, reflecting the failing light against the prism of pale blue eyes. Pearl-coloured gemstones cool underneath the coasting clouds. A touch of dusky grey filters in, settling beside the river of chiming intervals that swim between beautiful pools of clear light.

There is a hushed clarity to the series of chiming notes, each one casting a unique aura of entering light. It also demonstrates that tranquility is possible with several intervals on the go, and that peace is not restricted to a single drone or the traditional school of slow-developing ambience.

El Idioma De Las Luciérnagas (The Language of Fireflies) is an incredibly still listen. Only the quiet rustle of crickets in the brush and the singing chorus of birdsong make a distinct sound, and not even the breeze that kisses the rotating wind chimes has the capacity to ruffle loose feathers.

The dusky tones settle beside still, serene waters. An indigo swish of light is joined by another as the fireflies come out to play. A note is a spark of light that lingers in the air like a photographic after-image. The dash of light never remains in any one place for long.

As dusk approaches the bank, so too do moonlit tones. The cool, placid sound of the piano is affectionate, mirroring the earlier chimes with notes that easily sink into one another, creating beautiful arpeggios in the process. Premature in their arrival, the new interval then becomes the primary note as the previous note vanishes into the black light. The relationship between each interval and its subsequent effect on the music is lovingly pursued.

Now comes the nocturnal period, just after the quiet shimmer of dusk. The light of the day has departed, and the shushed echo of the insect calling is all that is left; an authentic kind of reverb. Among the placid ponds and thick reeds, the acoustic breeze stirs the air with a beautiful melody. The creaking of a wooden chair adds the all-important authenticity to the recording, while the deep bass notes ring out from the sound-hole in perfect harmony.

United with the dance of fireflies is the scent of the guitar’s wood and the shape of a Coca Cola bottle resembling her smooth body. The touch of a harmonic or two is a soft, light bell on the cusp of the dark. It’s the quiet introduction of the man-made, physical instrument, originally constructed out of nature, now at one with nature. It comes in peace.

“Los Cristales Soñadores” is a chiming loop of glowing mystery that becomes gloriously lost in the endless beauty of it all. It isn’t just the language of fireflies. It is the language of love. Argentinian Federico Durand narrates a sublime fairy-tale, one that we are all looking out for; where the fireflies lived happily ever after. 

James Catchpole

Thank you very much A Closer Listen and James Catchpole for the heartfelt review! F.

Interview by Tokafi

How far can a memory take you? When he was still a boy, Federico Durand's grandparents took him on an extended trip through the forests in the Southern part of Argentina. To this day, the experience is manifesting itself in his oeuvre, both subconsciously and with delicate deliberation. Already Durand's album- and track-titles are indicative of a love for a lost paradise and the world of children, of a fascination for the small, outwardly meaningless things that make life such an inexplicably wonderful thing: The ecstasy of little flowers, The Cypress's sleep, The Book of magical trees, My little world of paper – magical fairytales live in the branches and roots of the deep, comforting forests these names are conjuring up. And that's actually before you've even heard a single note. Durand's 2010 debut on the renowned Japanese Spekk-imprint fed from the contrast between lo-fi aesthetics, almost shy emotions and high definition textures, navigating oceans of tenderness with a ship made of tiny sounds. On El éxtasis de las flores pequeñas, this year's follow-up for Own Recordings, meanwhile, the symbiosis between intimate field recordings and fragile drones is taking center stage, the equinox of dream and reality manifesting itself in seven pieces of concise dimensions, which nevertheless seem to stretch out into the listener's imagination like an endless field of rolling green hills. Already opener „El pequeño huésped sigue dormido“, on which the arrival and departure of what seems to be a refreshing Summer rainstorm is accompanied by a duet between long, sentimental strings and an unresolved piano melody, is a perfect moment turned into music, a series of blurry snapshots that add up to a vivid mental image. Durand is not the first to tread these acoustic paths, of course. But the conviction with which he delivers this vision – all too easily mistaken for romantic kitsch by lazy ears – makes his soul trip sound like an explorative journey. If you, too, believe that happiness requires little more than beauty and a good cup of tea, then the music of Federico Durand may just be the soundtrack to your life.

By Tobias Fischer

Thank you very much Tobias and Tokafi.

Read the complete interview HERE.