Maud the Moth + trajedesaliva - Bordando el manto terrestre
A Closer Listen
trajedesaliva‘s Ultratumbo (2021) is one of the most unique recordings we’ve ever covered, boasting one of the strangest and most beguiling covers. This year, the duo has upped the ante in every way imaginable. Not only have they teamed up with Maud the Moth, they’ve signed to Time Released Sound, which means exquisite packaging ~ in this case, the choice of lathe cut, cassette, CD or art tin. The videos are even more powerful. AND it’s a concept album. Our collective cups runneth over.
With the expanded sound and presentation comes a different tone. Ultratumbo was dark and disturbing, drawing listeners into a sonic world rife with family dysfunction. On Bordando el manto terrestre (roughly translated as Embroidering the terrestrial mantle), the sun seems to have risen. Yet rest assured, the intrigue remains, as these tracks are intricate and layered, and the entire album has the feel of a fairy tale. Embroidered is the perfect word for this music, as the notes seem sewn and cross-stitched; there’s also an embroidering of tone, with hints of the former darkness present in the bees and buzz of “Fruta alrededor de una vela.” The closest sonic correlation is Hyperium’s classic Heavenly Voices series, which included the most incredible lineup of ethereal music available at the time. If Bordando sparks a revival of phantasmagorical music, all the better.
The album is a tribute to Spanish-born Mexican surrealist painter Remedios Varo, and unfolds in three distinct movements. “Trasmudo” covers her pained exile, just as fascism was taking root in Europe. As one might expect, some of the album’s most unnerving music occurs here, paired with two striking videos. “Perdí pie” (“I lost my footing”) explores themes of abandonment, with broken buildings, lichen, shadow and string. The masked violinist plays found objects as figures appear in shrouds. Maud the Moth (Amaya López-Carromero) sings an elegy. Hands appear through portals, representing worlds and nations, the disconnection of exile and ensuing hiraeth. unavena speaks over moonbeams. A ripple retracts; insects emerge from pupae. Mon Ninguén’s synthesizers pulse toward an unseemly end.
The intensity increases on “Jardincito de rosa y tierra.” A woman steps into an egg-like spotlight, uncertain, sheltering her body. A drumstick is raised; an explosion erupts behind. The shrouded figures return in a rush of sound. The camera trolls the body. Now the spotlight rests impossibly on its side. As real eggs appear, the symbolism seeps from the screen. A poultice is prepared. A snail carries its home on its back, as Varo shoulders memories and histories. What, if anything, is stable? Moving images flash across a face; an Ophelia figure lies on her side, cutout hands peeling from her dress, connecting to “Perdí pie.” A nun in prayer becomes an innocent nude, attempting to get her bearings as arms appear in shadow behind her. Is this what it feels like to live in exile, not only from one’s country, but from one’s body?
After so much religious imagery comes the image of a cat, incongruous until one realizes that cats are important in Varo’s work (“Cuerpo de gato” / “Cat body” makes the connection explicit). Now the arms are no longer shadows, the protagonist affected yet continuing to look ahead. Everybody wants something. And who has the right to define the human body, the artist, the exile? The final glance from the drummer is away: either resolve or the residue of uncertainty.
The second movement, “Naturaleza Muerta Resucitando,” delves into Varo’s fascination with transmogrification. Humans take on the forms of animals, insects, inanimate objects. The lines between living and non-living are blurred. As the videos have set the stage, one is already tuned into these transformations. Maud the Moth and trajedesaliva embody Vero’s paint in sound, with ever-morphing compositions, cut with the sounds of nature. While the tracks are non-linear, the album is linear, akin to a translation of travel. The organ speaks of spiritual things; the soaring vocals are like choirs, the spoken word like readings at an altar.
As the album approaches “Rompiendo el círculo vicioso,” the shadows start to recede. Varo is coming to terms not only with her exile, but with herself, finding worth in her creations, in the art of bringing to life what formerly existed only in the mind. Such is the process of embroidering. The surrealist artist tells her story through painting, the musicians through sound, the package artists (Colin and Maria) through collage. A story is told in triplicate, transmuting at every turn.
In “Perla” (“Pearl”), the music brightens, with interwoven harmony. Peace permeates the notes, as even shadow is woven into strands of light. These artists may have set out to tell a story, but in the process they have become part of it as well. (Richard Allen)
Mon May 22 00:01:02 GMT 2023Angry Metal Guy
Unquestionably I spend most of my listening time browsing this site’s namesake aesthetic, but I also enjoy sticking my nose elsewhere to try to catch a whiff of what else may inspire that same special beauty in ugliness I desire. Though the Maud the Moth (Amaya López-Carromero also of healthyliving) side has a metallic line to the pleading halls of Scotland’s Ashenspire, Trajedesaliva (the duo of Mon Ninguén on synths and unavena on voice) hosts no such connection, living in their own experimental electronic ambient world. United in production and additional soundscape work by fellow Ashenspire album Scott McLean (healthyliving, Falloch) this amalgamated Maud the Moth + Trajedesaliva (henceforth MtM+T) draws mutual inspiration for Bordando el manto terrestre. In the absence of riff, kick, pig squeal, or raised horns, can you still find your way with this experimental endeavor?
To add another layer of inaccessibility, Bordando el manto terrestre functions as an interpretive exercise for the life and works of Spanish-born, Mexican painter Remedios Varo. Though constructed as a distillation of her surrealist ideas and artwork,1 Bordando displays plenty of musicality in its own right—a dark atmosphere crafted by hissing, oscillating synth lines and the resulting layered swells. Walking down the darkwave-draped halls stained by moody ambient tunes, a gothic nature pervades the draw of MtM+T, while an existential lust defines its melodies. The threat of reality is fleeting throughout Bordando—the chamber music creaking of “Perdie pie,” the harpsichord-esque teetering of “Habitantes del desgarro,” the gentle acoustic strumming of “Perla”—only to be washed away by heavy sawed, ominously pulsing machine sputters. The slow and trembling beat of your own heart provides the rhythm.
If you’re still reading and curious, MtM+T fill Bordando with swaying vocal arrangements that both sooth the ears and tell a story. López-Carromero’s full and classically angelic voice—reminding me often of the celebrated Lila Downs—provides a hymnal reverence that shimmers against the buzzing and whirring gaze of “Jardincito de rosa y tierra” and “Perla” setting the stage for unavena’s breathy and inquiring poetic asides. On pieces that lead with a narrative, unavena initiates to navigate Varo’s ideas of transformation—both the fantastical tale of a human-to-cat transmutation (“Cuerpo de gato”) and the very real changes we can imbue in ourselves to better the world (“Circulo roto”). Regardless of whose style you find more engaging in context (or whether the all Spanish language lyrics land with you), MtM+T’s most gripping vocal highlights build around lines that appear in increasing layers and volume swells (“Habitantes…,” “Hilos de fantasia”). In the absence of traditional song structure, MtM+T shines a strangely tinted light.
But in Bordando’s atypical arrangements—inspired in their own way—rests a lack of diversity in structure. To overcome the predictable and gentle waves of dreamy choir to hazy recitations, MtM+T intersplices found sounds at key moments to maintain a natural passage of time. “Perdie pie” sets the stage with a swirling path and white noise crackle that fades with a cry that resembles a warbling bird or chattering dolphin.2 Thuds and footsteps lay cobblestone between other hallucinations (“Jardincito…,” “Habitantes…”), while other avian sounds (flies on “Fruta alrededor de una vela,” planes on “Hilos…”) pan between channels to startle and steer. Though these small touches don’t read like much, their absence makes a huge impact on the shortest track “Cuerpo de gato,” which feels unending in its cyclical synth pawing. Where’s the purr?
To no one’s surprise, this journey can feel a bit placid, but even still there’s an art to unwinding—an art Maud the Moth + Trajedesaliva have stitched and studied. If you’re the kind of person who enjoys a quiet Saturday at the steadfastly curated displays of a contemporary art museum or liberal arts college assembly, Bordando el manto terrestre can easily exist as a deluxe audio tour for Varo’s oblique and evasive works. Or if you’re looking for a more contemplative and abstract pairing to last year’s equally pensive but distinctly urban Forest City by Maria Chiara Argirò, Bordando el manto terrestre again can fill the niche proudly. Maud the Moth + Trajedesaliva highly specific mood can seem intimidating, but when I close my eyes, I can’t help but hear it’s peculiar hum in the distance.
Rating: 3.5/5.0
DR: 9 | Format Reviewed: 320 kbps mp3
Label: Time Released Sound | Woodford Halse
Websites: bordandoelmantoterrestre.bandcamp.com
Releases Worldwide: May 26th, 2023
The post Maud the Moth + Trajedesaliva – Bordando el manto terrestre Review appeared first on Angry Metal Guy.
Thu May 25 19:36:46 GMT 2023