Feliz 2014 - Merry 2014

My best wishes for a wonderful a New Year!

F.

Feliz Navidad - Merry Xmas

A list of my favorite music, books and things for FLAU label (Japan)

FLAU

Favourites 2013

-Albums

Andrew Chalk & Tom James Scott – Wild Flowers (LP, Skire) White Poppy – Drifter Golds (Tape, Constellation Tatsu) Brandon Hurtado – Hotel (Tape, Carpi Records) Ki Choquette – Landscape Suicide (Tape, Carpi Records) ILLUHA – Interstices (CD, 12k) Vikki Jackman, Andrew Chalk & Jean Noël Rebilly – A Paper -Doll’s Whisper Of Spring (LP, Faraway Press) RION - ホタル (CD, Hibernate) Mary Lattimore – The Withdrawing Room (LP, Desire Path Recordings) Opitope - A Colony Of Kuala Mute Geeks (CD, White Paddy Mountain)

-Books

Nicolas D. Bedini – “Sueño con lavadoras y otros poemas” (Bajo La Luna, 2013) Natsume Sōseki – “Sueño de la libélula” (Satori, 2013) Martin Heidegger – “Observaciones relativas al arte –la plástica -el espacio. El arte y el espacio” (Cuadernos de la cátedra Jorge Oteiza, 2003) Miyazawa Kenji – “El tren nocturno de la Vía Láctea” (Satori, 2012) Graham Reynolds – “Thomas Bewick –A resume of his life and work” (Art and Technics, 1949)

-Tea

El Gato Negro (Green tea, orange and ginger).

-A place

The beautiful gardens and houses in Rawson neighborhood, Buenos Aires.

-A name (for a cat)

Pijomei

-Instruments

Mattel tinkle-tonk (1953) Neunaber Wet Stereo Reverb Sony TC-D5M Tape-Recorder (Japan) Microbrute mono-synth Old crystal cups Bells

-A wonderful thing

Mixing Melodía's 2nd. album with my friend Tomoyoshi Date.

-A beautiful object

A kaleidoscope with frogs

2013

2013 ha sido un año de hermosa música. Muchas gracias por escuchar y crear! 

2013 has been a year of beautiful music. Thank you very much for listening and creating! 

Best wishes for the New Year,

Federico Durand

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.