EDU COMELLES & SERGI PALAU – ABOUT BERLANGA
The audio-visual multimedia project About Berlanga is a homage to Spanish film director Luis Garciá Berlanga (Valencia, 1921). It is created from completely deconstructed parts of the soundtracks for his films Placido (1961), El Verdugo (1963), and Bienvenido Mr. Marshall (1953) – all written by composer Miguel Asins Arbó.
You will probably have a hard time recognizing the original soundtrack (assuming that you are familiar with them), because Edu Comelles has completely torn them apart and recreated it into soundscapes “in which the noise of old magnetophonic tapes and loudspeakers dialogues with musical reveries that trigger the memory and the recollection of melodies that, more than soundtracks, are already part of a common cultural imaginary.”
To complete the project, visuals, and stills from the same movies were added by Sergi Palau, seeking “to create a new narrative without separating from the social message derived from them”.
True to the nature of its intentions, About Berlanga is released on a 4Gb SD card containing the music (3 tracks, 33 minutes) as well as the FullHD video of the AV show premiere at La Mutant (Valencia). Four stills are included. The music is also available separately as a digital download (without the video).
JACEK DOROSZENKO – IDENTITY VALUES
Jacek Doroszenko is an audiovisual artist from Poland, based in Warsaw and Krakow. In his work, he focuses on multimedia art, music, and audio phenomena. Discogs only mentions three previous releases on familiar labels like Eilean Rec., Audiobulb, and Time Released Sound – but his discography spans much more than those three albums (such as four titles on Zoharum, for example).
Identity Values is his latest release on Audiobulb Records and is inspired by the way “individuals shape their identity based on the values that are important to them”. An interesting subject, especially since I write this on the day of the American elections.
“Contemporary approaches to identity assume that it is constructed and negotiated in response to changing social and cultural conditions.”
How exactly this translates into the music is of course a subjective matter, but some of the track titles may help: Identity Is Malleable, A Motivated Man, Self-Control Model…
The electronic soundscapes are a fascinating collection of ‘audio phenomena’, sometimes hectic, sometimes relaxing, and sometimes both at the same time.
As complex and unfathomable as the concept of identity itself, perhaps?