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Lots of La Ola Interior (Spanish exotic and citrus 1983-1990) It sounds shockingly contemporary for a bunch of songs recorded in the mid-to-late 1980s. surrounding Since the genre was already relatively well established by the time many of the artists in this group recorded their songs. But as we approached the end of the century, much of the scene in the United States and Japan was beginning to move into New Age territory. These artists from the Spanish peninsula were trading in something more experimental.
Internal wave It covers a lot of stylistic ground. there Desperate dronesClassic analog excursions, discrete chants, Field recordingsand yes, even some of the more rhythmic forward tracks. But what unites it all is the clear DIY aesthetic and demand for your attention.
Often, ambient music is designed Fade into the background. “It has to be as ignorable as it is interesting,” he says Brian Eno. And while some tracks were running Internal wave They can serve as background music, and most require close listening. The atmosphere here is in its hypnotic consistency and repetition, not in its neglect.
The opening track from Miguel A. Ruiz, “Transparent,” is built around a short loop of what sounds like a piano. It’s drowned in borrowed noise, indicating that it’s being driven by a low-bit-rate sampler. What unfolds is almost the opposite of what happened with William Basinski Disintegration rings. The lurching loop of gloom slowly fills in, adding more layers, building to a dense crescendo that abruptly breaks off.
This immediately leads into Camino al Desvan’s “La Contorsión de Pollo,” which sounds like Tangerine Dream played at half speed. Finis Africae’s “Hybla” is a Krautrock song filtered through Spanish and Arabic folk music traditions, arriving at something rhythmic and catchy that wouldn’t sound out of place alongside the Kraftwerk sans drums of Orfeón Gagarin’s “Última instancia.” Other tracks like Javier Segura’s “Malagueñas 2” are more orchestral, almost epic – an unresolved hero’s journey in aural form.
Many of the artists in the collection appear multiple times, giving you a sense of their place in this diverse and loosely connected scene. You can identify artists whose roots are in more traditional musical forms (Finis Africae), which are heavily influenced by American minimalist composers (Segura), and which are almost unclassifiable (Ruiz). But you also feel the drive for sonic exploration that unites them.
groups like Internal wave Invaluable for preserving lesser-known works by artists often overlooked by the American public. Label Bongo Joe Records It showcases a number of these groups and is worth following on Bandcamp.