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.

A nice review @ Cyclic Defrost (Asutralia)

The title of this album, translate as ‘The ecstasy of little flowers’ conveys a sense of the nature of small bright moments that make up the miniature of vast landscapes of joyous endeavor. Argentinian Federico Durand compacts acoustic guitar, piano, field recordings and recording techniques into these moments. The melodies are simple and sparse in their unleashing, lingering on notes, allowing for the resonance to fulfill it’s promise. Field recordings of birds, children at play, rain, incidental sounds of the performer at work are all fleshed out as aspects of the work and manipulated with an ear towards an electro-acoustic sound palette an a dimensional sense of the sound presentation.

El éxtasis de las flores pequeñas was mastered by Taylor Dupree at 12K which explains the masterful spatial aspects in the recordings and how it conveys through the recorded medium. The delicacy and touch of the work itself bears out as intimate, displaying the technique of classical acoustic guitar technique without the emphasis on display of rigour. Rather it simplifies and amplifies subtle movements and intonations to achieve affect. When the introduction of drones appear later in the album, they are long and ponderous with glimmering overlaid melodic touches and sharp tuning. Overall the achievement of beautiful simplicity is a well honed skill here and an approach to be delighted at in any field.

Innerversitysound