El Alma de La Máquina

Campos y Ficciones Entre lo Maquínico y lo Etéreo

The improvised debut album from this experimental duo has the rare distinction of being pretty accessible, and even more rare is the fact that it remains as such all throughout, without ever giving in or compromising its own vision.

When I was 16, the band that I used to play in, got invited to a metal-core show, even though we were not, in any conceivable way, a metal-core band. Not at all. None of us were wearing black, our instruments were in standard tuning, we didn’t have a vocalist and we were the only band that had more than fuzz or distortion pedals. After finishing our set to a lukewarm reception (core kids were not into pseudo-experimental alternative music) we decided to fuck with everybody’s expectations, so we downtuned our instruments and improvised a metal-core song on the spot just to make fun of the genre (go teenage revelry!). The audience cheered and they decided to finally talk to us.

Since that day, I always thought that improvisation wasn’t a big deal, and, for a 16 year old kid playing crappy house shows, it mostly wasn’t. As I started to grow older and broadened my musical baggage, I realized the seriousness of it and finally understood the fear it evoked in a lot of musicians. Fast forward 17 years later (yikes!) and here I am, writing a review about the debut album of Mexico City’s duo, El Alma de la Máquina, trying to describe the intricacies that make up the five improvised songs on this LP.

This partnership between Carlos Arias (from psychedelic noise makers Tajak) on guitars, and Jorge Berumen on drums and objects, takes a rather philosophical stance when it comes to describing its purpose, using terms like “phenomenology of the guitar” and “simulated fiction”. To a few, this may sound like some Hunter Hunt-Hendrix level of self-importance, to others it might seem like an actual interesting way of describing an approach to sound, and the rest may not even read the manifesto. But there’s one sure thing: no matter their position, most will enjoy the hell out of this album.

Despite its experimental nature, Campos y Ficciones has the rare distinction of being a pretty accessible work, and even more rare, is the fact that it remains as such all throughout, without ever giving in or compromising its own vision. Upon approaching this LP, I assumed that, as it is the case with these type of endeavors, it wouldn't be short on moments of tedious, meandering experimentation that would only culminate in a state of arrested development; nevertheless, the sonic explorations contained in this -relatively- brief album, are far from being mere academic exercises or a display of self-indulgence by the duo. Each piece reveals different nuances within itself as it progresses, and the keyword here is "progress".

The tracks unfold with a distinctive flow provided by each instrument. There's a sense of looseness, but it is well contained within a defined set of idiomatic rules: we're listening to impromptu work, but none of the musicians are dwelling in unknown territory. The fluidity of the pieces makes it obvious that they're in their comfort zone, but that’s not necessarily a bad thing. The communication between the two members manifests beautifully in the perfect synchronicity present in each twist and turn; the drums become more frantic as the guitar spews spiraling sonic textures, and even become completely absent if the piece calls for it. As sudden as these changes may be, there are no signs of hesitation that compromise the songs' momentum.

"La Llegada" is the track that best encompasses Campos' statement. With a structure full of peaks and valleys, this song positions itself as one of the most dynamic within this compilation. Its calculated chaos feels organic as it nervously moves with an erratic cadence. The drums sound robotic at first -almost rigid-, slowly becoming more human-like with every crescendo in order to match the intensity of the guitar’s droning and bombastic nebulous textures. The rest of the album carries on in a similar fashion with its scattered rhythmic patterns tip-toeing over an ethereal fabric, but no track sounds exactly alike; there are subtle differences that make the whole album work like a one cohesive piece divided in five sections. Even if the last two cuts aren’t the most memorable out of all, they still feel as a vital part of this whole endeavor, specially “Extravíos”, which marks the first and only time the drums are nowhere to be heard for the better part of 6 minutes, only coming in at the end with a 4/4 dance groove.

The use of the prepared guitar is somewhat similar to what we can find in the recently unearthed treasure that is Daniel Malempré’s My Sixteen Little Planets, but it is even more abstract. Obviously, being a solo effort, Malempré had to resort to filling different roles only using his guitar; for Campos y Ficciones, Carlos Arias' approach to his instrument is a bit more reserved as he has the advantage of not being alone when it comes to the rhythmic part. Within the context of this album, what Arias delivers works very well because of the way it feeds off of -and supports- Berumen's playing.

The liner notes on their Bandcamp page state that the duo is aiming to develop a new [musical] vocabulary and are also trying to redefine the way in which composition and execution are approached. This may be a long shot, since, technically, they're exploring upon a vocabulary that has already been paved by previous experimentalists, like the aforementioned Malempré, and contemporary percussionists like Booker Stardrum and Eli Kezler just to name a few; however, that doesn’t keep Campos from being a superb addition to the pantheon of experimental music, specially in the Mexican scene. We can surmise that this will be the first installment of an ongoing thesis, and it is exciting to see what their next exhibit will be like.

KEEP DIGGING: