JUAN JOSÉ CALARCO – Aguatierra

Unfathomless

Even in the world of field recordings, the exhausted adage “less is more” can be successfully applied. Aguatierra – recorded by Calarco in ecological parks and reserves of Argentina and Mexico – easily stands among those albums that fully justify the use of the adjective “unassuming”. The only human-generated sounds emerging from the natural ambiance are in fact a few metallic hues, something like moderate rolls and thuds, the fruit of what’s defined as “improvisations” with Pablo Reche during one of the recording sessions. The rest is made by what we’ve been given many times in the past, though it must be told that I would never get tired from listening to singing birds. So what is the element that saves this CD from the boiling cauldron? The answer is to be found in the above mentioned unpretentiousness. There’s no secret message to be delivered, no “this-is-my-stuff” ego hidden behind the echoes of mother nature. The environment talks – quietly – and we just listen, attentively or not. The wind, the water. The sound of distance. The solitude. There might be records in this area whose immediately striking features are effective at the outset, but the modest certitude with which the elements make their voice heard in this occasion is both an invitation to silence and a stimulus for the increasing of our concentration level, a conditio sine qua non for keeping doing the right things through this difficult era.