I’m still taking in Lucrecia Dalt’s breathtaking debut LP, Commotus. With its mystifying lyrics and graceful charm, the music had me drawing comparisons to David Lynch and Mark Frost’s Twin Peaks when I reviewed it earlier this year. On ”en medio,” an exclusive mix for TMT, the Colombian artist offers a most descriptive insight into her creative working patterns, where she uses snippets of performance and dialogue to expand on the processes behind writing structures — all this while hinting at fresh material from her forthcoming album.
There remains little more from me, other than to offer you a pleasant journey through this truly wonderful exposition of artistic method, which comes with an introduction from Lucrecia herself:
There’s always some dialogue, a melody or a particular phrase that lingers in my mind after watching a movie, and these fragments become leitmotivs within my imaginary sound world for days, weeks, or even years afterwards. I wanted to integrate some of these in the mix, where they work probably as multipliers of meaning within the narrative.
Film became increasingly relevant when I was making the Commotus album, but I was thinking more about imaginary landscapes then, whereas on the new album, film played a key role. I picked around 10 movies I’ve been heavily resonating with during the past year. While recording I used to play these movies on mute and sometimes just randomly, I was turning up the volume for a second while playing back the stems I was working on. Since I am not having any collaboration from other musicians on this album, these movies became the external shifter elements, the vectors of disorientation, guides to other moods. This way my temperament wasn’t the only thing determining the album’s direction.The mix slightly exposes some of the resources used on the new record, like frozen tonalities as bridges for change; they illustrate a certain attention, or the care involved in the levels of the mix, which leads to doubt as to whether or not a melody was there all the time, when it appeared or if it had disappeared completely.
There are sudden brakes in the narrative, an inversion of meaning through dialogue and texts being brought out of context. It also has musical references that relate to both albums, like the boleros that were very important references to create Commotus, or how the headphonic pieces and soft pink films are important to the new album.
While I am making a new record, work becomes a compulsion. My routine changes completely, dreams and thoughts become louder and more intense, conversations more enjoyable and graspable, ordinary walks become remarkable; I’m able to materialize what besets consciousness, self-estrangement rises, as does my affectation.
Stream below, and subscribe to our podcast here.
[00:00] Frank Gartner - “cloud environment”
[00:05] Asmus Tietchens - “p1 (micro snippet)”
[00:11] Vittorio Gelmetti - Opening track of the film Deserto Rosso
[00:27] Nuts & Co - “La Vie Des Animaux”
[01:33] Patty Waters - “Black is the colour of my true boy’s hair (snippet)”
[01:50] Tod Dockstader - “Rotary”
[02:28] Felix Kubin & Coolhaven - “Der Bleiche Beobachter (snippet)”
[02:42] Winona Ryder - Dialogue from Night On Earth
[03:54] Esther Ferrer - “Radio Web Macba podcast FONS # 1 (snippet)”
[04:13] Felix Kubin & Coolhaven- “Der Bleiche Beobachter (snippet2)”
[04:39] Frank Gartner - “Shudder and Shimmer”
[05:02] Brian Eno - “Jungles”
[06:32] Snippet from Sans Soleil
[06:35] Jason Grier ft. Julia Holter - “Karma”
[09:25] Ellen Burstyn - Dialogue from Providence
[09:35] Fondation - “Spirale”
[11:39] Girona with Consell de Cent - Recording from the Chamfer, Barcelona, April 2013
[12:56] Matilde Díaz - “Te Busco”
[15:38] Gena Rowlands - Dialogue from Faces
[15:44] Young Marble Giants - “Have Your Toupee Ready”
[15:44] PÉREZ (Sara Fontán + Lucrecia Dalt) - “Jiff (miniatura 2)”
[17:24] Japanesse Bolero - taken from the soft pink movie Daydream
[18:47] COH - “Path # 1”
[18:59] Snippet from the film 2 Ou 3 Choses Que Je Sais D’elle
[21:30] Bradien - “Nemoroso”
[23:38] Frank Gartner - “The Moon”
[24:49] Λένα Πλάτωνος - “Έρωτες το καλοκαίρι”
[27:10] Ryoji Ikeda - “Headphonics 1/0”
[29:43] Snippet from the podcast “Probes # 2.2” by Chris Cutler for Radio Web Macba
• Lucrecia Dalt: http://www.lucreciadalt.com
• HEM: http://www.hemberlin.de
[Photo: Catalina Pérez]
More about: Lucrecia Dalt
