The first wave of slowly swelling melancholic loop-drone upon starting the disc confirms any preconception one might have concerning the tone of this latest release by The Beautiful Schizophonic (Jorge Mantas). The second wave of likewise loop-droning undulating decay (track 2) consecutively goes on to undermine these first impressions, and thereby confirms the preconception concerning a pertinent dualism pertaining to the artists work (already pronunciated in the “schizophony” of Jorge Manta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s moniker). Consecutive tracks only go further to annul any clear-cut ideas concerning the emotional and \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcconceptual\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 aims of this release.<\/p>\n
This, then, is not a release single-mindedly aiming at pleasing the affective synapses or the romantical lobe of the human brain. There is definitely a sense of the beatific agony, a dark-romantic thread surging through the whole of this CD; but there is way too much itching, especially on any conceptual level, for this release to be unequivocally deemed \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcbeautiful\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcromantic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122, or even \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcmelancholic\u00e2\u20ac\u2122. What we do have here, is, to my sensibilities, a truly puzzling, truly intriguing mixture of deep and light ambiences, textures and fissures to appeal to both the heart and mind.<\/p>\n
I find my mind turning back to the film \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcPan\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s Labyrinth\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 which creates an incessant tension between a fairytale world wherein the youthful protagonist finds herself evermore immersed and the reality of war and torture of mid-40\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s fascist Spain. During the course of the film, these two worlds come more and more into conjunction with each other only to in the end become radically disjointed again, leaving a gaping cleavage to be bridged by the mind and feelings of the spectator who is in effect left dangling over this abyss. A same \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcdramatic structure\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 seems to me to underly the design of this release here currently under review. There exists a stark discrepancy between the dark abysmal atmospherics, the almost misplaced and seemingly blooper-like \u00e2\u20ac\u02dcouttakes\u00e2\u20ac\u2122 and finally the truly heavenly spheres harmonizing with romantic, almost Dante-like sensitivity between which the different tracks on this release undulate.<\/p>\n
I don\u00e2\u20ac\u2122t know Proust\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oeuvre enough to judge whether this internal, both emotional and esthetic tension reflects an intrinsic characteristic of this author\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s work as a whole. I do know enough biographical data, though \u00e2\u20ac\u201c the author, bed-ridden due to severe pulmonary and other ailments, either freely choosing or destined for dedicating his creative genius to the recreation of a world which filtered through his neurasthenic sensibilities became a monument to both the most discreet and the most extravagantly lived out individualism \u00e2\u20ac\u201c to consider this tension-ridden (or even tension-wracked) character that Musicamorosa evinces as attaining to at least a moment of truthfulness in the representation of these circumstances that surrounded the genesis of Proust\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s oeuvre. In an almost Marxist fashion here becomes tangible an unsurpassable chasm dividing the material circumstances which surround the genesis of this great oeuvre from its ideological, esthetic surplus that constitutes the artistic product itself.<\/p>\n
This (non)relationship between these different levels is not explicitly thematized in Jorge Manta\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s remarks accompanying the release on the Cr\u00c3\u00b3nica webpage; but his comments on his intentions (his fantasies?) with this release \u00e2\u20ac\u201c inferring the analogous circumstances under which the art of both the contemporary laptop artist and Proust (both sitting in solitude, darkness and silence) comes into being \u00e2\u20ac\u201c lead to the question as to how such self-willed solitude can become the generative grounds for any work so explicitly dedicated to (romantic) love. Not without any ambiguity, so it appears. (In this regard there are both analogies and discrepancies with the dismissal of the world \u00e2\u20ac\u201c in Catholicism basically considered as God\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s beneficent creation, aye, a fount of revelation itself \u00e2\u20ac\u201c within monastic orders.) But here it is specifically this ambiguity itself which might characterize the true artfulness of both Proust and Jorge Mantas \u00e2\u20ac\u201c an ambiguity which, according to Socrates\u00e2\u20ac\u2122s parable with which he entertains his pupils in the Symposium, likewise lies at the heart of love itself. Love itself is likewise characterized by its dual nature of both flying towards and fleeing from its beloved.<\/p>\n
This posture of the solitary, then, which can be considered the true theme of Musicamorosa, comes at least halfway to attaining what is classically termed \u00e2\u20ac\u02dctrue love\u00e2\u20ac\u2122.<\/p>\n
Mark Pauwen<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
The first wave of slowly swelling melancholic loop-drone upon starting the disc confirms any preconception one might have concerning the tone of this latest release by The Beautiful Schizophonic (Jorge Mantas). The second wave of likewise loop-droning undulating decay (track 2) consecutively goes on to undermine these first impressions, and thereby confirms the preconception concerning … <\/p>\n