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 review by Data.Wave

All the tracks from the new album La Niña Junco (released on the label 12k) by Federico Durand are real lullabies reminding us of the beautiful and tranquil time of our childhood. You won't find any radically innovative musical moves here; instead you'll see how using just sincere ingenuity and sound a musician can create a musical piece with ease and simplicity. 

The first track La historia de la niña junco is a tender beginning to Federico's story. Just a few minutes in 

we can already feel the forest and the sound of the wind, listening to his track with a title that speaks for itself:Navidad en el Bosque. I'm also impressed by the harmony of the background noises and the lead melodies of the tracks. Far-away rustles, micro-sounds and keys of the track Rondel also perfectly fit the overall theme of the album. The mood of this work is pensive and melancholic. 

In my opinion, the main «talking» piece of La Niña Junco is the track called Una plaza junto a las vias del tren; its light and marvellous melody sticks in your memory. It should be noted that the original cover for this release was created by Lola Goldstein, a famous artist from Argentina, the home country of the musican himself. 

As listen to it again and again, I like to imagine how multiple generations of young people grow up listening to the sounds of Federico Durand's music; and let us not forget about the adults, they can be dreamers as well!

Buy

Federico Durand 

12k

Author: Uniq

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Muchas gracias Uniq y Data Wave por la escucha y las palabras buenas, F.

Silence And Sound 

Federico Durand

La Niña Junco

(12K)

C’est à un voyage baigné de douceur et de poésie, que nous convie une nouvelle fois, l’argentin Federico Durand, à l’mage de son superbe A Través Del Espejo sorti l’année dernière.

Avec La Niña Junco, il compose une musique ambient aux nappes frappant l’imagination avec subtilité, assemblant bruitages organiques et sonorités abstraites aux images floutées, pour une perte des sens noyée dans un voile soyeux caressé par une lumière chaleureuse à l’éblouissement tamisé.

Federico Durand joue avec les balancements et les fluctuations, atteignant parfois une certaine forme de mysticisme aux yeux clos et l’esprit vagabond. Il nous caresse de par ses mélodies nuageuses, à la légèreté transparente que l’on aimerait tenir entre nos mains avant de les laisser à nouveau flotter. Un album délicat et évanescent à écouter sous une pluie d’étoiles filantes. Enivrant.

Roland Torres

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Muchas gracias Roland Torres & Silence And Sound por la bella reseña! F.

"La niña junco" reviewed by Ondarock (Italia)

Si tratti di affinità elettive o di proselitismo, nessun'altra etichetta sarebbe stata adatta a ospitare la musica di Federico Durand quanto la 12k di Taylor Deupree, di ritorno nel 2017 con le delicate sequenze indeterminate di "Somi". Attivo dall'inizio del decennio, poco più di un anno fa l'autore argentino trovava infatti la casa ideale per "A Través Del Espejo", ultimo di una già nutrita serie di album ambient dallo stile intimo e inconfondibile.
Con "La Niña Junco" Durand ha voluto portare a compimento un esercizio di essenzialità, riducendo ai minimi termini gli strumenti a sua disposizione: con un unico sintetizzatore Crumar Performer, due pedali loop e uno per il delay è infatti riuscito a plasmare nove tracce infuse di una grazia surreale, in bilico tra bozzettismo figurativo e onirica astrazione.

Seppure su tutte sia più calzante l'analogia coi morbidi tappeti del bedroom pop firmato Trouble Books ("La historia de la niña junco", "Lluvia de estrellas"), non risulta pretestuosa l'ulteriore associazione con le recenti prove del maestro Eno: se il suo "Lux" era un quadro oggettivante e cristallino su una natura immota, le miniature di Durand si appigliano a suggestioni che spaziano dall'istantanea fotografica ("Una plaza junto a las vías del tren") alla sinestesia tattile (i due movimenti di una ipotetica "melodia di peluche").
È lo stesso tratto gentile delle forme fantastiche di Joan Miró, ma anche delle favole partorite nel "regno dei sogni e della follia" chiamato Studio Ghibli, giunto di recente all'essenza della sua arte collettiva proprio con "La storia della principessa splendente".

Quando non c'è null'altro da dire, rimane soltanto l'ascolto e le immaginazioni da esso innescate: una pratica alla quale l'intero catalogo 12k ci ha sempre educato - con prodotti "di genere" ma che non possono mai semplicemente scivolare in sottofondo - e che un gioiello come "La Niña Junco" merita in particolar modo.

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Muchas gracias Ondarock y Michele Palozzo por la reseña! F.

Breve reseña de "Jardín de invierno" en Música Bonita, Japón

"Jardín de invierno", mi nuevo CD editado por SPEKK, viene dando vueltas y vueltas, trayendo satisfacciones y sorpresas. En esta oportunidad, apareciendo en la publicación Música Bonita de Japón, especializada en sonidos del Sur. 

FEDERICO DURAND / Jardin de Invierno

以前も書いたと思うけど、率直に言って普段私はいわゆる「エレクトロニカ」を聞くことはないのだけれど、Federico Durandだけは別なのです。暖かさ、懐かしさ、彼の音楽は記憶に沁みるのです。だから電子的に作られた音ではあっても、音楽の印象は人肌なのです。「冬の庭」と題され本作も、自然の情景を微睡む様に繊細に描写した愛しい世界観。来年3月に来日だって。残念ながら今回はお話をいただけなかったけれど。

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Muchas gracias Manabu Ishigooka por la escucha atenta y sensible. F.

A very beautiful review of "Jardín de invierno" by HearFeel (UK)

Dear friends, I want to share with you this beautiful review of my new álbum "Jardín de invierno" (Spekk, 2016). There is a place where sensitive listening and writing meet each other and dialogue. Thank you very much Chris Doherty and HearFeel (UK).

"Its softly patterned repetitions hum and flicker with the slow likeness of scenes glimpsed through leaves, light finding passage through a canopy in brief bursts, this echo of energy and life still present in the evergreens of a system at its nadir."

You can read this review HERE.

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Muchas gracias! F.

"A través del espejo" (12k) reviewed by Neural, Italia

Amigos, buen día! Comparto esta reseña -en inglés- de mi disco "A través del espejo" (12k) que salió en la revista italiana Neural. 

"Federico Durand is an Argentinian composer who is well known for a series of refined and delicate releases on labels such as Spekk, Own, and Desire Path. The seminal idea of A Través Del Espejo dates to 2014 when Durand participated in a Japanese tour with other 12K artists, sharing music and ideas throughout the tour and developing an intimate approach to sounds. Once the artist had developed broken melodies using cassette recorders as an instrument, with loop-machines (such as the Roland Space Echo or Electro Harmonix 2880) he began to meticulously accumulate sequences and treatments. The soundscapes, like singular images iterated through two mirrors placed face-to-face – acquire a particularly dreamy and meditative appeal and turn in a loop that flows into infinity. Field recordings peek between the grooves too: a woman speaks with a child, natural sounds, auditory catches of daily life in a village, abstract narratives that leave us slipping into a parallel world. Durand is very attentive to detail, both to spontaneous audio emergences, and to the natural sounds made by machines, crackles and other sounds that appear here as an unexpected gift. The lullabies are very hypnotic, and these resonate with alchemical vibrations, patiently calibrated by the author, who skillfully organizes every minimal element, every harmony, every millimetric overlapping of tonal events. The result combines the quietest moments and inspired harmonies, nostalgic atmospheres and poetic rêveries: memories that floats in the ether, engraved in an accomplished minimalista."

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Muchas gracias Neural!

F.

A wonderful review by Anhedonic Headphone!

"Durand does best as an ambient/instrumental performer, Winter Garden finds him creating mostly short, evocative vignettes of sound that do their best to create an atmosphere of fragile, bittersweet comfort and reassurance."

You can read the full review HERE.

Muchas gracias Anhedonic Headphones por la escucha atenta y las buenas palabras!

F.

Magical Imaginary Child ~ Reviewed by Fluid Radio

Magical Imaginary Child ~ Chihei Hatakeyama & Federico Durand

Chihei Hatakeyama, Japan’s ambient auteur of all things light and airy, has been fairly busy of late, pouring out sunbeamed sub bass radiation and a host of space pads since 2008. His most acclaimed works probably remain those on the esteemed Hibernate label, concillatorily ‘The River’ for quenching a periodic state of the year’s unease. But by and large, Hatakeyama has pulled in new ears on every new record, and here he’s joined by the very able and revolvently contrasting Farewell Poetry styles of Federico Durand.

Durand I’d like to state is not a member of Farewell Poetry, but this ideology – of mistaken identity, of transcendent stylish mane, blossoms the individuality of both collaborators into a delightfully tranquil hotchpotch. There are also shadows of David Tagg’s ‘Waist Deep Seas Of Milk’ about the whole (some) affair, a lush bathe in absorbent honeydew drones.

The first sound you hear on this lp, Magical Imaginary Child is a careful tone float, a quintessence chord, stapled together with that gentle field recordist touch both artists carve from the bark. The last melody contrariwise creates a sense of essential ascendente.

Instead of wonderfully raggedy, ‘Magical Imaginary Child’ is wilfully astral, applying a sensuous approach to tone and texture. A tone ripples like a bicep of the World’s Supplest Organism competition, Hatakeyama and Durand shaping promising verses that fade with the penny being dropped. Whether that child is imaginary we may know, and whether this music is greatly interesting we may know as well. In magic, never is a truer word spoken; the ultimate paradox, and the ultimate reason for musical adventure.

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Thank you very much Mick Buckinham and Fluid Radio for this hearfelt review! F.

Review de "La estrella dormida" por Infinite Grain

Infinite Grain

A constellation where innocence rests in eternity; a field made of the paths of stars that sleep in the day to tell the stories of the night. Sound is here a fleeting light, a intermittent dream that seems awake, wandering in the trails of cosmic imagination; deep, fragile, colorful. Following the steps of the dawn, Federico Durand draws remote landscapes that send the listener through the hidden subtlety of the lightness of life; delicate and radiant, ready to challenge the soul in a fantasy between nature and infinity, between simplicity and nostalgia. Among warm melodies, soft structures, some field recordings and spellbound loops, Durand builds a magical world where the mind subsides, the heart expands, and the song of stillness finds its niche among surreal echoes, perhaps of sounds, perhaps of memories. It is as if for one night, stars and dreams gathered together to write songs to the moon. (white paddy mountain)

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Muchas gracias Infinite Grain por la escucha atenta y sensible! F.

Review de "La estrella dormida" por Hawái

Hawái - La estrella dormida / Federico Durand

A través de White Paddy Mountain, el label de Chihei Hatakeyama, podemos escuchar estos retazos producidos al otro lado de Los Andes. Federico Durand produce un álbum de canciones en su mayoría breves, extractos de desarrollos más prolongados que se mantienen como recuerdos fugaces de ideas inacabadas. Utilizando herramientas que no ocupan demasiado espacio Durand se encarga de extraer sonidos y melodías de una hermosa fragilidad. “La estrella dormida” reúne diez piezas que poseen una misma sonoridad que cruza todo el disco, aún cuando las texturas sean diferentes. Un murmullo de sonido rugoso, una superficie desigual que se puede palpar en cada una de ellas, un ruido imperfecto que sirve de suelo donde se apoyan esos acordes. Loops imprecisos sobre un plano borroso, las notas se repiten encima de la acústica delicada formando unas estructuras de cristal roto. A menudo parecen prólogos de composiciones mayores, quedándose en un esbozo de algo que podría ser, dejando una extraña y agradable sensación en el aire. Este trabajo surge casi desde casualidad, como si sus canciones fueran encontradas sin ser buscadas, recogidas de algún lugar en el campo.

(…) 

Continuar leyendo AQUI.

Muchas gracias Hawái por la reseña! F.

"La estrella dormida" reviewed by Textura

Federico Durand: La estrella dormida 
White Paddy Mountain

Textura

Buenos Aires-based sound artist Federico Durand sets the tone for his La estrella dormida (The Sleeping Star) with a liner note that reads, in part: “Sometimes at dusk, from the train window, I can see the first star in the sky. Its light is a company that stays by my side during the travel until it gets dark. Then, like a magical presence, the stars, with its shining melody, invite me to dream.La estrella dormida ... is an album to listen to at sunset, during that moment when the sky changes its colour and houses and gardens turn pink, silent, and musical at the same time.” Such words provide a perfect entry-point for the forty-two-minute release, given that their evocative, dream-like tone form a natural complement to the ten settings.

If the music is characterized by one thing in particular, it's intimacy: not only is the listener made to feel as if he/she has been granted access to Durand's inner world, the recording and its “small melodies” were created by him alone using piano, E-bow, analogue synthesizer, music boxes, cassette-tape loops, crystal glasses, and assorted other “tiny things.” There's a hazy quality to the production and a relaxed feel, too, both of which suggest that La estrella dormida was recorded in the comfort of Durand's home.

The pieces themselves are less songs than ambient soundscaping vignettes sprinkled with microsound textures and melodic fragments. Each piece drifts placidly along for two to six minutes at a time, with delicate, fluttering breaths of piano, bells, guitar, and synth tones draped across the tracks' gently undulating surfaces. Perhaps none of the pieces is lovelier than “Reflejos del sol en la superficie del agua,” a twilight ambient serenade that unfolds with a finely calibrated grace, while the one that's most dream-like is “El sueño de Fabergé” for featuring so prominently the bell-like warble of the music box.

Anyone acquainted with the White Paddy Mountain releases issued prior to Durand's will identify La estrella dormida right away as a natural member of that particular club, given that the albums Chihei Hatakeyama has released on his label to date have all shared a stylistic concern for understated ambient soundsculpting.

December 2014

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Thank you very much Textura for listening and heartfelt apreciation! F.

Beautiful review by Infinite Grain

Sound is a fountain of epiphanies. When listening gets into moments as placid and serene as those usually created by Federico Durand, it’s not hard task to find the beauty that is found in the act of being, silent, without any interest rather than sounding in (or out). “El estanque esmeralda” is a recreation of memories, a truly visionary work based on time-space collisions where the ears open doors to sublime territories in which thinking becomes unnecessary because the sonic element is enough and its details require complete attention. In this album, field recordings are lightly planted and finely merged with ethereal melodies, subtle sound fluids and delicate atmospheres, resulting into graceful but uncanny soundscapes constructed for delighting the senses and sending them to a liberating listening experience. A masterpiece of organic music; onirism at the ears, a way of becoming sound. (Spekk)

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Thank you very much Infinite Grain for this wonderful review. I am very happy that you feel the friendly ghost of "El estanque esmeralda".

F.

"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.

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

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Thank you very much Textura for this wonderful review! 

F.