Catorce reflexiones sobre el fin is by Angélica Castelló (GRUENREKORDER GRUEN 193), the very talented Mexican musician who we have heard in an improvising / collaborative context, but she’s also a very good electro-acoustic composer. This LP is tape-based compositions with lots of editing, splicing, reworking and putting new things together. It has its origins in a 2019 art installation in a gallery in Mexico – we might be hearing original source material from that show, or edited highlights of same.
Unlike some wholly “abstract” composers, Castelló works closely to a theme with this work, unafraid of meaning and content, and even daring to suggest half-formed narratives…the theme is a valedictory one, all about the end of life and the end of everything, and saying goodbye. The work is thus loaded with signifiers and emotional triggers, and not just in the distorted voices that float towards us as if emerging from a dream, or phoning us up on the cosmic telephone from paradise. The artist wants to take us on a journey across an impossible world, so field recordings drawn from her extensive collections are carefully assembled to suggest places, weather, micro-ecologies…all of this amounting to a work of tremendous beauty.
I think I’ve often remarked on the vivid surreal vistas which this artist is capable of producing, and this one is a primo example of her craft. From 7th July 2023.