Today my brain was pleasantly revitalized by the soundscapes of an Argentine acousmatic composer never met before: Fernando Curiel, whose admirable technical background and overall education have not generated an inordinate amount of releases to date; not even Discogs features his work, and that will hopefully change from now on.
Curiel appears as one of those characters with perennially inquisitive ears, looking for cosmic energies and everyday life suggestions in order to merge all that is gathered into meaningful compositions. Each of the five pieces of Escenasonica clocks at about seven-to-eight minutes long. It’s a stimulating sonic overview, rich as it is in imaginative juxtapositions, visionary flashes and hints of faded memories that are attempted to be brought to the forefront again. Curiel’s assembling abilities take into account all the variables that this kind of patchwork should have. Mixing human manifestations with metamorphoses of instrumental or environmental instances; finding the proper balance in dynamics, spatiality and succession of events between electronic and real; alternating the surprise factor with the stability necessary for grasping, at least transiently, what one is hearing.
It takes a special sensitivity to create unusual sounds that can first attract, then ignite in the listener the need to return and attempt to discover new details. In the case of this reviewer, the best combination is found in the title track, which closes this excellent set in a worthy manner by merging different types of expectation and psychological confirmation with respect to what you understand, or only guess at the level of psychoacoustic expressive potential. If I were in the shoes of some curator, or had to give a suggestion to illustrious labels of the sector (Empreintes DIGITALes, anyone?) I would make a phone call to Señor Curiel without hesitation. I’m going to go out on a limb and say: there is authentic talent here. In copious doses.
MASSIMO RICCI. TOUCHING EXTREMES. 