Two artists for this beautifully ambitious album – Guillermo Corrales is a casseteer and matinée musician who plays electric guitar and percussion, and Marianne Paradis is a percussionist who plays marimbas, bells and cymbals. In addition to playing together on previous occasions, they have been recording together for the past few years. Their first collab was a head-scratching, head-puking, hands-in-the-air freaky fun in March 2016. There was also a previous collaboration with new electronic duo V-Mo, but that was more a solo project. Here, they have their own hybrid project, with half the tracks being done by Paradis, and the other half by Corrales. A neat segue, I thought. Maybe I am wrong.
In a way, this makes perfect sense. If you are a fan of Corrales’s work, you already know that he combines a masterful set of unisons and deconstructions with a keen ear for small, subtle changes. The music leans heavily on what might be described as electroacoustic music. That is certainly the case on the first half of the record, but I was not a fan of the first half. Not because I didn't like the music, but simply because I don't think I heard much of anything in the first half. Maybe there is a reason for that, and I haven't yet to listen to both halves. Perhaps it is all that the CDN library has to offer, but it is not always easy to find new music from Guillermo Corrales. Sometimes, it is all buried deep in the back of the speakers, or next to midi or outboard electronics. It is sometimes difficult to figure out what is happening. Sometimes, it is all surrounded by sounds that are rhythmic/electronic in nature, but it is not always clear. Sometimes, it is all surrounded by silence, but occasionally some sounds seem to be whirring around, present and absent. It is all rather dark and experimental, which I enjoyed very much.
On the flip, Paradis plays an instrument called the B-16. I had not heard of that before. It is a long-tail synthesizer that produces low-end ambience and high-end waves. It is very much in the world of low-end, but in this case, it is also a bit more sci-fi-than-we-know. That makes it even better, of course.