Francisco López – Untitled (2004) CD

MoSo

Francisco López has been a force in the electroacoustic soundscape field for more than 20 years. His composition of sounds and ultra-crisp recordings truly go lengths to create space in sound. With minor ambient tendencies that mostly devolve into field recording, “Untitled (2004)” is a dark and moving but in a highly removed way. The listener can listen to these tracks and feel immersed in the environment; López presents each track with a vital coherence and balances the minimal sounds highly efficiently and punctuates the space tastefully with bouts of silence. The crystal clear recording quality creates a very strong presence and makes the listener feel surrounded in the environment.

While most of “Untitled (2004)” is found sound and field recording, bouts of swirling, pulsating ambient textures provide some fundamental variation without straying too far from the concept of creating an environment with the sound; I feel like I could hear these sounds somewhere in real life. The sound fluctuates smoothly between the environmental noises to nearly a tribal style. López is very much in the business of engulfing his listener in unseen environments; though unseen, the presence of the minimal sounds can be felt. The final track presents a raucous stint of cut up grind/noise, which is an interesting but not ineffective juxtaposition with the relative sparseness of the rest of “Untitled (2004)”

Though casual listeners (whatever that means for noise fans) may find this release dull and far too long, the real magic here is allowing oneself to be engulfed in the environments and being patient with the album. Though certainly not perfect, I found myself enjoying getting lost in “Untitled (2004)”

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