This year of the dragon 2024 will see the release of several new records I’ve been crafting during 2023, and the first months of 2024. This waterfall will consist of 5 new solo albums and 3 collaboration albums.
After an intense work period at Sauerland Studios & Recording Co. in which all this material has been coming together, now that the process has finished I feel like I have arrived both at the end of a journey (artistically, personally, psychologically), and also at a new starting point.
I’d love you to listen and enjoy the material as much as I’ve enjoyed making it, and hopefully see you on the other side of this music waterfall.
Due to my financial situation and the state of the matter regarding record sales, etc, these releases will come out as digital only through my own record label, Holy Hoof Records.
Next are the details, cover arts and approximate release dates for all of these artifacts.
Solo
REQUIEM FOR A DISSOCIATED NERVOUS SYSTEM
(May 2024)
As its title indicates, it is a funerary oeuvre for a dissociated nervous system (my own), in the attempt of translating the processes of trauma, depression, anxiety and mental illness to sound and music so it could serve as an artistic exorcism or catharsis. It consists of 6 pieces, three of them including some form of vocals, with the collaboration of the ex-flamenco cantaor Niño de Elche and the dadaist artist and poet Kurt Schwitters, as well as the debut on record of my 4 year old daughter on hand percussion instruments.
The core of this sound Kraken emerges around electric guitars, synths, violin, viola, bass and drums, as well as being dressed by bowed double bass, hammered dulcimer, a run-down mandolin, Tibetan singing bowls, a ukelele, drum machines, an Omnichord, percussion and doorags. The burial chant that allows for everything else to fully exist and begin flourishing from its remains.
SEAWARD ON THE WAVES
(June 2024)
The push forward in order to explore new realms for creativity after the ashes of a malfunctioning past have been scattered and left behind. A collection of 10 instrumental songs in a more acoustic approach, yet with some electronic takeover, sound processing, field recordings, and a string quartet on several of the tracks.
You’ll hear acoustic and electric guitars, Oud, banjo, Weissenborn, Mountain dulcimer, Shruti box, waterphone, synths, violin, viola and cello which propel my musical ships in their renovated hulls towards uncharted territory.
FOR THE LOVE OF A HORSE
(Sptember 2024)
An imaginary soundtrack for a non-existing film that tells the story of a couple of settlers that are forced to move out of their home and on to the next valley to ensure their crops and livelihood, and the travel and transformations that this enterprise entails. 12 tracks fully structured around piano, orchestra, synths, percussion, sound processing and incidental sounds.
P.S. If you are a filmmaker and would like to discuss the idea of creating the film for this soundtrack, please do not hesitate contact me!
THE IMMOVABLE LADDER
(October 2024)
A forgotten and found treasure from the times of the 2020 lockdown, this improvised 3-part piece for piano (with the addition of some synths and sound processing) comes into relevance nowadays due to the sad current affairs in the Middle East and the war in Palestine (and Ukraine, and and and…).
The so-called immovable ladder under the window of the Church of the Holy Sepulchre was in place by 1728 and has apparently remained there since the 1757 status quo was established (with alleged temporary moves occurring in 1997 and 2009). The ladder is referred to as immovable due to the agreement of the Status Quo that no cleric of the six Christian Churches may move, rearrange, or alter any property without the consent of the other five orders. This struck me as a powerful metaphor of the possibilities for peace in that part of the world.
THE END TIMES
(Fall 2024)
A 25-minute long pocket opera commissioned by the Mexican label Post Records built around the concepts of climate emergency, climate justice, extinction events and the possible end of (human) times.
The eight acts of this pocket opera are intertwined in a single listening experience, and are named after the different levels of extinction of a species. Although originally composed on a 6-string acoustic guitar in Orkney tuning (CGDGCD), the final result also features piano, electric guitar, electric lap steel guitar, synths, percussion, sound processing and field recordings.
The End Times has been already broadcasted on this episode of Geografía Nacional, an experimental music radio show on Radio Relativa, but it will most likely come out on physical format sometime this fall through Post Records and Holy Hoof Records in a split edition with Golden Eternity, Dylan Golden Aycock‘s own pocket opera.
Collaborations
TROCOIDE
(July 2024)
Back in late 2022 I rang up my friend and multi-instrumentalist Óscar Barras and proposed him to meet for an improvised session of electric guitar and electric lap steel (me) and drums (him), to follow up our experimental incursions compiled in Dantsa!, the first and only album by Umbeshi Tokari, our improvised experimental trio together with Barras and Miguel Á. (a.k.a. Carnisaur).
This ever-mutating strange and brutalist body of work comprised of 5 instrumental songs emerged from the single session we did, and now will finally see the light.
EL HOMBRE CON LA CÁMARA (MAN WITH A MOVIE CAMERA)
(Fall 2024)
After several years performing our soundtrack for Battleship Potemkin with my collegues of Raisa, we have composed a new work of live music for cinema around Dziga Vertov‘s Man ith a Movie Camera, the 1929 classic experimental avant-garde groundbreaking collage of the Russian director. The live performance of April 14th, 2024 at Teatro Pavón in Madrid is the chosen one to be released as an album.
The soundtrack composed for the occasion updates this classic of Russian cinema and brings it to 2024 with a material that combines post rock, electronic music and elements of chamber folk.
Personnel:
- Rufi Carrillo : electric guitar, piano
- Tomás Garrido : electric guitar
- Daniel Goldmann : drums, groovebox, sample pad
- Xisco Rojo : electric violin
- Diego Sánchez : bass, ZX Spectrum +2A
POPULAR
(Sometime in 2024)
October 6th saw the opening of the exhibition ‘POPULAR‘, for which a very special soundtrack commissioned by the artist and curator Pedro G. Romero and IVAM, the Modern Art Museum of Valencia, was created by the ubiquitous and hyper-experimental «cantaor ex-flamenco» Niño de Elche together with me as composer, instrumentalist and producer.
From scratch, we created 15 songs that wander the limits, so often blurred, between sound, music and the popular aspects of the song. From German techno to Mexican peteneras, from religious music to synth-noise, from avant-garde free improvisation to saeta, and from French piano chanson to African proto-funk, the variety and lush of these songs refuse to accept any preconceptions.
It is still unclear when the double vinyl edition will be available via Sony Music, but the songs can already be heard on the exhibition’s website.
Love and happy listenings!