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.

Primavera

"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

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Thank you very much Textura for this wonderful review! 

F.