Murcof
Remembranza

The French ethnographer Marc Augé defines our current condition with the term "supermodernity." That is an excess of time, an excess of space, and an excess of ego. Among these three figures, Augé focuses primarily on space. Airports, shopping centers, highways, parking lots are monotonous places inhabited by solitude, absence of thought, and relationships. They are the "non-places" where transit is accompanied by a repeated sense of abandonment. Perhaps even the cities, suburbs, and neighborhoods we live in have become non-places, but that's another story. A possible hypothesis is that their multiplication will lead to the collapse of the social system. When and how the non-places will collapse is unknown. Perhaps we will not witness these events. But today we can listen to the most credible soundtrack of what will remain when the dust has settled. It is called "Remembranza" and comes from Tijuana, a limbo city between Mexico and the United States. Its author is Fernando Corona aka Terrestre, already a champion of the avant-techno-folk project Nortec Collective. Enchanting in many of his productions under the pseudonym Murcof, Corona offers music that saturates the environment with an emotional tension with a nocturnal charm. A precious compound, suspended and rarefied, of minimal percussion, assorted electric discharges, shy piano chords, and poignant symphonic openings. An epic and decadent sound that evokes ancestral memories. Remembrances, indeed. Places and non-places of memory. Images of what we no longer are. Replicating sound. Cinematic. Post Blade Runner. Open to the visions of each listener. The author sees Tarkovsky's Solaris. Where the strings emerging from the electronic fabric evoke the vision of the magma-planet where the thoughts and desires of every individual materialize. "Remembranza" sounds here and elsewhere. In the past because it has masterfully absorbed the knowledge of the masters. In the future because it possesses compositional virtues that go beyond. Beyond Brian Eno's ambient algebra. Beyond the eclectic hermeticism of the Warp school. Beyond Boards of Canada's synthetic watercolors. Beyond Craig Armstrong's compositional pathos. Beyond, but not in inaccessible places.

This is music that demands engaged listening but is not at all difficult. Contemporary music that can be worn like a garment for the soul. Because, ultimately, it's all a question of perspective. Shifting our perspective. And the non-places become places again. To be listened to and passed on to posterity. If there will be any.