Fine spooked-out harsh-noise-drone-o atmospherics from Rogelio Sosa on his daturas (BOCIAN RECORDS BC-ROG) album…I particularly like those moments when he shamelessly creates a miniature horror-movie in sound, even to the extent of using sound effects to help propel the vaguely-outlined story, on such tracks as ‘Diablero’ or ‘Visiones’. As well as boldly embracing narrative themes, Sosa is not afraid of using a melodic element if the situation demands it, adding a grotesque organ flourish to certain moments, and before long you too are sharing his nightmarish visions of gothic mansions populated by tall, creepy old people with gnarled hands and sulphuric makeup plastered over their craggy visages. Plus, he’s an A-1 noise guitarist; there’s his heavy-metal guitar slung over one shoulder, fed through a fair few distortion and grubuloid effect boxes, the better to induce grisly shocks as needed, juddering the spinal cord of listener.
Born in Mexico City, Sosa is an accomplished sound artist and composer with an impressive CV of awards and festival-curation actions to his credit, has won several prizes for electro-acoustic composition and found a niche in the professorial-academic strain of computer-composition as a taught subject. Daturas exhibits a masterful attention to detail, textures, and surface, and Sosa puts effort into making his frequencies work in a co-operative and contrasted way, to avoid the usual quagmire of blended, overworked, soggy drone music that so often emerges from a digital environment. His titles also suggest an interest in assorted dark ceremonies and ritual invocations, a “vibe” which is something of a cliché nowadays, but again Sosa is adept at avoiding the traps which ensnare more solemn and self-important droners. Pressed in clear vinyl, arrived 3rd September 2014.