Sebastian Escofet

MEDITATIONS

First, there were Steve Reich’s remixes. Then farewell to contemporary composers from the 20th. century, sponsored by Sonic Youth Jim O´Rourke, and recently, pieces in a (post) modern style by William Orbit. Finally, it is now Sebastián Escofet’s turn, Argentinean, producer and musician with a long record in the local rock back stage. How much these pieces owe to the original ones is not the issue under analysis. What obviously is, indeed, is the process with which the compositions were examined, and same goes through a remix of the performances in CD, in and out of a computer. Fortunately, the results, far from being close to Orbit’s naïf work – its closer background – recall the expressionist configuration of sounds shaped in albums from Eno with Harold Budd, or Gavin Bryars’ first works. The piece closest to this system is Debussy’s Claire de Lune – in itself an example of minimalism. In there, Escofet cuts out the piano’s main notes, combining then, his attack and fall, bringing out an effect similar to that of Music for Airports. The piano sound is a key aspect of MEDITATIONS, particularly in the first track: megamix avant which compresses Debussy, Brahms, Bartók, Stockhausen, Benjamín Britten and Arvo Pärt, where de instrument creates a liquid atmosphere, fused with percussion and African songs. Probably the best piece of this album is its version of Concert for piano and orchestra from Bela Bartók, which actually owes as much to Bartók as to Ligeti in its completion, and reaches through complex means, a beautiful, almost religious serenity. Same can be said about Quartet # 3 from Russian composer Schnittke, whose harmonic phrasing superpose whimsically. In opposition, the most dissonant piece is Hunting from the South African composer Kevin Volans, where the overtones collide merging with sounds and frequencies produced by computer filters. Obviously, the fact that the album was generated with digital media- which on the other hand are almost imperceptible -, MEDITATIONS seems to be the model of slow motioning tapes with which Brian Eno remixed the Canon in Major Re from Johann Pachelbel and included in the elemental Discreet Music from 1975. But, what is most important from MEDITATIONS is the implicit message: the possibility of the digital media overflows the stiffness of the pop electronic. An antidote for the Rebirth trend, which invaded Buenos Aires.