Miguel A. García & Àlex ReviriegoHeralds de l'hiver

Miguel A. García and Àlex Reviriego have long careers in experimental music, free improvisation, electronics and the most risky metal. In recent years they have collaborated in various projects with other musicians, but this album is their first project as a duo. García and Reviriego act as guides, like Stalkers, on a sonic journey divided into four seasons.

If on other occasions their sounds have been impregnated with those dark Lovecraftian worlds so dear to both of them, on this album the music seems imbued with metaphysical science fiction. The sounds come from infinite spaces pregnant with fundamental philosophical questions.

The first two tracks refer to Solaris, Andrei Tarkovsky’s film; to that distant and immense ocean that transforms itself; a transcendental entity superior to the human. Machines evolving into animal beings, creating their own rhythms and their own mating codes.

The third theme transports me to 2001 — A Space Odyssey, it is a pinnacle of gliding electronics impregnated with the best Ligeti, impeccably structured. A joy of balance and restrained tension and at the same time it has an essence linked to the terrestrial rhythm, the dawn, the origin.

And we end with the final question: the questions that surpass our intelligence, the unknown. The last theme is the dizzying uncertainty, the sea, again the thinking and immeasurable ocean in which the ship disappears, vanishes, lost and searching, always searching.

Can we say that nature is aggressive? That the cosmos is cruel or capricious? The control of the flow of sound is the alchemy of music.

Ulzion

This is a sad record. Of a cold and clean sadness. Sounds of the past heralding an unmitigated disaster.

When I started to work on it by myself, I was trying to avoid the somehow melancholic and postromantic tone of my recent releases and develop a more impersonal and empty language. More ancient.

I always thought of feedback as one of the definitive instruments, absolutely perfect in its clarity and simplicity. Like the harp, the clarinet or the female voice, I could listen for hours to a few no-input mixer tones and never get bored. Far from an issue, the lack of the human gestural component enhances the icy and imperturbable character of its electrical nature.

I met Miguel A. García at the parking lot of the old Artiach cookie factory, just a few minutes before of the Phicus soundcheck at Zarata Fest. I liked his slightly harsh and sullen attitude from the first minute. Every time of the many we've seen each other since, being as a part of an ensemble playing one of his compositions, performing at one of his festivals or simply talking, the impression of being in front of a unique and relentless artist just got reaffirmed.

Without a doubt, Miguel is one of the best listeners I ever met and an ideal collaborator. Listening to the record now, time after its completion, it’s hard for me to tell apart the contributions of each other. I recognise “my” sounds entangled in processes I recognise as totally his own, and at many times I had to go back to my drafts to see if certain developments were already there or if Miguel, with virtuosic ear, unearthed them from among my raw materials.

But I alone am dull and stupid.
Oh, I drift like the waves of the sea,
Without direction, like the restless wind
(Lao Zi)

Àlex Reviriego

• Miguel A. García: electronics, sound manipulations, mixes.
• Àlex Reviriego: no input mixer, feedbacking electronic devices, synth.
• Juan Carlos Blancas: mastering.
• Studio Noxu: cover drawing.

This work has been created as part of the artist-in-residence programme of Azkuna Zentroa, Bilbao, 2023-24.

Special thanks to Mikel Huici, Fernando Perez & Rakel Esparza.

A limited-release tape version of this release has been published by Hera Corp. and can be purchased directly from their Bandcamp page.

Press-release / Reviews