{"id":10675,"date":"2020-12-29T10:41:58","date_gmt":"2020-12-29T09:41:58","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=10675"},"modified":"2020-12-29T10:41:59","modified_gmt":"2020-12-29T09:41:59","slug":"francisco-lopezs-dsb-reviewed-by-vital-weekly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/blog.cronicaelectronica.org\/?p=10675","title":{"rendered":"Francisco L\u00c3\u00b3pez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DSB\u00e2\u20ac\u009d reviewed by Vital Weekly"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
\"\"<\/a><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

The title doesn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t tell us much more than Francisco Lopez\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 \u00c2\u00a0myriad \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Untitled\u00e2\u20ac\u009d works do; I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ve no idea what DSB is an acronym for, if it\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s even an acronym at all. So I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122m really unsure what this album is all about\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 which I imagine is fine with Lopez. While many of his previous albums have little by way of cover art, this one has an image\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is it a blue sky? Or a painting? Or\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 who knows? Looking for context seems to be beside the point, so I\u00e2\u20ac\u2122ll accept \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DSB\u00e2\u20ac\u009d as pure sound and not attempt to discern more from it than an experience of listening. The first side is a college of domestic machine clanking, airplanes (sourced from\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 a war movie?), engine roar, the hum of empty hallways, burbling water and gusts of air\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 each one treated as an isolated episode with sudden jarring edits from one sonic space to the next. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DSB\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is not obviously organized with a dramatic though-line, as many other Lopez works are. A noisier section about 3\/4 of the way into the first side that pairs breaking glass and irregular thump with what might have been hurricane-force winds could have been the focus of an entire piece. Unfortunately, it cuta off abruptly, shifting focus to an entirely different density\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and then again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and again\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and I started to wonder if the editing was random. Side two picks up where side one left off, with small someone-shifting-their-weight-in-a-chair movements accompanying a distant cyclic whine. After seven minutes of this, Lopez changes the channel again and we\u00e2\u20ac\u2122re listening to a worn copy of \u00e2\u20ac\u0153Changez les Blockeurs\u00e2\u20ac\u009d on a record player at the bottom of a lake\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and incongruous heavy breathing (hey, I like that TNB record also, but\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 keep it to yourself, okay?)\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 before more jarring edits that seem unrelated to one another\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 and we end on a battlefield with a sudden stop. Most Lopez albums are challenging. I expect to not have an easy listen, to have all the pieces spelled out and handed to me. \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DSB\u00e2\u20ac\u009d is no exception. But when this ride ended, I was left wondering what I just heard. The second time through didn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t make anything more clear. Was there cohesion to the source material that will reveal itself to me after further listens? Or is the episodic nature of the composition significant to a theme of war or machines or\u00e2\u20ac\u00a6 is it purely sound and I should accept it as exactly what I heard and nothing more? Lopez certainly isn\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t saying. But where other Lopez albums make a visceral impact without so much as a title or cover art, I\u00c2\u00a0feel that \u00e2\u20ac\u0153DSB\u00e2\u20ac\u009d would benefit from some context. (HS)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

via Vital Weekly<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n