Montevideo Mondays (XIII)
Lost in that parallel galaxy known as the alternative scene of bandcamp music labels, a record with four tracks arrived last week in my inbox. A friend recommended me to listen Abdul and his most recent effort, “Pareidolia”, which was released a couple of months ago.
“Pareidolia” is well known as a sort of psychological reaction where a rare, vague stimulus (maybe an image) is erratically perceived as something well known. It’s like finding a face in a plate of food.
So the name of the record sets the rules, and Abdul´s songs tend to channel the title: they present themselves as abstract pieces of well known instruments and some electro touches that stay instrumental but, after some minutes became more like a blurry sound. However, they never lose their pleasant vibe, something that seems to come from a very intimate place, with inspiration and relaxation as the main goal. It´s an invitation of a musician with worries of the commercial etiquette and form that sometimes seems to be implanted in our heads. Here the music seems like a search and reflection process. It’s defined by the constant experimentation with ideas… all exposed in a very neat music environment with no angular sounds… more focused on a quiet, gentle vibe. There is also a subtle influence of Brazilian and black 70s music that, although difficult to detect, can be heard throughout the music. In these songs, you can´t hang onto anything; the best option best nike running shoes is to let yourself go with every track.
“Pareidolia” (you can get it for free, here) is more than this EP of four tracks. It is actually a selection of discarded songs of “Naoplia”, which came at the beginnings of 2013. By the way, that record and these songs are full analog-recorded. Here´s one of those songs:
Also the artist has written a blog about the recording process. If you can read spanish, click here.
