As an inamorato of acoustic substances typified by metamorphic resonances, this writer is always attracted by the music of people scrutinizing the unrevealed physicality of a single instrument, perhaps enhanced by a few effects. If the investigator in question is Rosa Arruti / Nad Spiro – a longtime friend of Touching Extremes – we’re absolutely on the safe side of betting. There will be no less-than-honest statement, no chance to prefigure the inherent potential and structural development of a given work.
The basis for the nine tracks of Pedreres is a trip through the sonic secrets of the celebrated Montjuïc, in Barcelona. It’s hard to imagine Arruti exploring the cavities of a mountain exclusively armed with a guitar and four pedals. But that’s exactly what she did. It is not entirely clear to me whether the natural reverberation of the local quarries contributes to the cryptic reflections heard throughout the album. I guess so, as the artist declares that “no digital plug-ins were used in the making of this recording”.
There’s a wealth of melodic (that’s right) and tonal variables to be savored. Plucked/picked strings may sound Twin Peaks-ish at the outset, then get multiplied, wrapped, suffocated or defaced by an aggregation of delicious analog dirt. We are left wandering inside the realms of sonorities that would perfectly fit in a lysergically active installation, minus the pills. A conscious observation of the intrinsic possibilities of unusually splintered timbres eventually leads to the osmotic absorption of their very transfiguration.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 