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

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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.