On Ekkert Nafn (CRONICA 151 / TRONICDISEASE TD-3), two Spanish sound artists Francisco López and Miguel A. GarcÃa collaborate on one of those sound-file swapping projects. Two long pieces are the result, apparently using the same source materials – there’s talk of field recordings, mechanical devices, digital transformation. López extends his for 31:53 and in terms of his ongoing no-titles-for-me-thanks project, he’s up to #351 already. Wild contrasts are the hallmark this time around; chaotic swirls of abundant layers, followed swiftly by near-silent stretches of mystery. I like the agitated sections, when they appear; they have a rather acidic menace, like copperhead snakes writhing in a vat. He names six separate international locations and one studio, and a date span of five years for this creation; López invests a lot of time and effort in tending his sonic garden. Conversely, GarcÃa put ‘Applainessads’ together in far less time; hard to generalise about this abstracted stuff, but I guess he uses more filters than López, keeps his brain inside the box of the computer, and his piece sounds more indoorsy and occluded, which I do like. If López’s half depicts a bright desert sun, GarcÃa reclaims the night, and a very desolate place it be. This solo laptop thing isn’t where he’s “at†right now, though, since emails he’s been sending me indicate he’s trying to move into group composition and have his ideas performed by others. By the way, the title Ekkert Nafn is an Icelandic way of saying “no nameâ€. Ed Pinsent