Lullaby for Lali is something different from a Barcelonan musician known more for his improvisatory skills on guitars, electronics and turntables. Ferran Fages, both solo, and in collaboration with a multitude of sensitive and skilled players including Robin Hayward, Bhob Rainey and Alfredo Costa Monteiro has been a solid presence in the European experimental and improvisation scenes. Fages has been bending circuits and fretboards out of shape since the tail end of the 1990s, yet Lullaby for Lali turns in a stately, scored and considered take on Ambient and Post-Rock directions.
Fages is joined by Lali Barri¨re, who provides the album with the unmistakable sounds of the metallophone, guitaret (an obsolete Hohner-produced instrument sounding somewhat like an electrified thumb piano) and electronics. “Lullaby Electric” rumbles into being with grating melodica textures that gives way gradually to a pastoral reverie where the sun is setting slowly at the end of a day when everything was right in your world. Strummed guitars pick at dust motes in a shaft of light, and the metallophone’s distinctive tones arpeggiate in a manner reminiscent of Tortoise’s Vibraphone. Slowly, this side winds down towards a meditative stasis of bowed strings and whistling winds. A lengthy fade-out makes sure you’re suitably relaxed, although best to stay alert enough to turn the vinyl over.
“Lullaby Acoustic” actually sounds very electric in places, although there’s a picture of Ferran Fages playing an acoustic like a lap steel, with two e-bows working overtime, so maybe it shouldn’t be too surprising at the tones he is able to coax out of acoustic bodies. There’s a certain Labradford / Dirty Three slow burn aching its way through this side, as warm guitars, shiny with layers of shellac and spit, cry and moan. Can majesty and serenity result from such simple ingredients? Eventually the melodica drones drop out and you’re ambling along a deserted beach with only a resonant guitar for company. “Lullaby Acoustic” is resolved by protracted interplay between guitar and bass as they sing and swell like the tides of the oceans.
Oliver Laing
