Barcelona based musician and poet Ferran Fages often wields the pen, guitar, acoustic turntable, electronics, no-input mixing board and other devices in collaborations with collective IBA and the well received Cremaster project with Alfredo Costa Monteiro. al voltant d’un para/.lel sees a solo Ferran concentrate solely on guitar compositions and is recorded from a live performance.
Tonal decay and resonant qualities of the guitar are focal points here with composition and instrument in an interplay for formative space and control. Such a tendency sees a strikingly sparse sense of what could be called rhythmic orientation towards a concentration on the full resonance of chords with associated intertwined and extended flourishes overlayed until decay. Then next resonant possibility or theme plays out.
Listening here often the question of the influence of effect devices raises its head, as if devices of sound manipulation have influenced the compositional structure of the acoustic. Akin to discussions between peacocks and chainsaws (David Attenbrough) or Electronics and Didgeridoos (Aphex Twin) as a notion of the mirror or imitation. Here guitar appears to take on the inclinations of other devices which could be considered as strategies, methods or merely reflections of the devices residual presence.
Other ways of conceiving it could be as stripped down minimal guitar, yet this approach is stymied by the resonant warmth and emotional depth displayed, as opposed to a seemingly dry approach to formal aspects of structure. It is not just the silence of the crowd that inspires reverence in the listener here, their applause eventually breaking of this stance closing the album, but the ability to inspire such hushed and reverential mode in an audience is a quality that Ferran Fages work elicits.
Innerversitysound
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