The work of Gabriel Hernandez has intrigued and impressed me for sometime now. I first discovered him through his associations with netlabels and the free MP3 albums and tracks he released which demonstrated an ability to coax the simplest melodies from instruments with tiny sounds (glockenspiel, marimba, melodica etc) and then subtly process these to mesmeric effect. Long, Lointain is his first pressed CD release and it successfully maintains GoGooo’s excellent track record while exploring new areas.
Field recordings make a much more significant contribution to this album and are generally reasonably unprocessed. A recurrent textural theme is developed in the sounds of a bricklayer building a wall. Over the course of the album, the sounds of mixing cement, troweling mortar and laying and tapping bricks can be heard at different stages in soft, unobtrusive, though clear, recordings. The reference to genteel, rustic D.I.Y. construction is a nice analogy to the overall sound, built from naive, though beautiful, instrument playing and other sounds, such as bicycle bells and garden sounds which continually evoke images of life beyond the laptop. And that is the key to the success of Long, lointain, a careful balance between evoking places and a more traditional decorative role for music. Hernandez never gives so much away that the listener doesn’t need to do any work, yet always frames this in delightful beauty.
The disc comes with four films which reinforce the audio. Simple, home-made and very short they are richly suggestive without ever being descriptive. This is a surefire way to keep a discerning listener (viewer) continually coming back for more.
Adrian Elmer
*
