The following text appeared originally on the architecture blog zooburbia.blogspot.com, on July, 2009.

SAVAGES

 

Wilfrido Terrazas

 

       In 2002, I was involved in the production of a very modest Xenakis Festival in my hometown of Ensenada, Mexico. Among the guests there were percussionist Steve Schick (I still remember his remarkable version of Rebonds) and Mexican composer and former student of Xenakis’ Julio Estrada. The festival was a fantastic experience. I had been interested in Xenakis’ music for some years by then, but coming across live performances of his music in Mexico is, unfortunately, not easy. From then on, my interest in Xenakis’ work has kept on growing. For this festival, I asked a close friend of mine, Felipe Orensanz, an architect and an admirer of Xenakis himself, to prepare a small exhibit with a few representative Xenakian designs. He collected several significant images and put them together in four or five posters. The images were as powerful as the music. My friend wanted them to convey as much information as possible, so he gathered a few Xenakian quotes to complete the images. One of those quotes made strong impact on me. I’ll try an English translation here:

                             I’m a savage, and my works are spurts of savageness. The layer of civilization 

                             is extremely faint in me. I am not a civilized man.     

I found out years later that this was taken from one of Xenakis’ last interviews, made by Bruno Serrou in 1997 (B. Serrou. Iannis Xenakis. L’homme des défis. Paris: Cig’Art, 2003, p. 61). How did it end up in one of my friend’s posters, a year prior to its final publishing? I have no idea. But, as I mentioned, it made a strong impact on me. One can approach Xenakis’ music and thought in many ways. There are his humanistic and philosophical ideas. There are his relationships with mathematics and the natural sciences. However, to me, this didn’t fully explain the energy and uniqueness of his music. After I read this quote, I knew what he meant: Savageness as a raw product of nature. Now I could fully understand my interest in his music. Xenakis’ music is the only thing I know that, in spite of being produced by humans, can be perceived as a natural phenomenon. Now there was an aesthetic idea that I could completely identify with: Music as a force of nature. I became a savage too, and remain so to this day.       

[EDGAR GUZMÁN’S DIFFERÁNCE]

By WILFRIDO TERRAZAS

 

I’m very far from being an expert on Critical Theory. I have much respect for Jacques Derrida’s work and thought, but I’ve always had trouble relating it to music. Don’t get me wrong, I’m not denying any connections. Far from it. They must be there, if someone else sees them. It’s simply that, as a musician, I tend to think that it’s not my mission to look for them. The fact that anybody feels compelled to look for all sorts of connections between music and the world of ideas is, in my opinion, yet another beautiful mystery of life. I have a strong sense, though, that Edgar Guzmán has succeeded in doing so, as I listen to his remarkable debut album, Differánce.

Before I go on, I should clarify something. In listening to music I rely, among other aspects, on a raw perception of energy flow. It manifests itself to me as a kind of elementary, intuitive understanding of the life of sound itself, as presented within the timeframe of a particular piece of music. What I mean to say is that certain music gives you the choice of living with and through it. That, to me, is an immediately appealing quality, one that makes that music authentic and irreplaceable. Keeping track of a wild energy flow is most certainly a patent aspect of listening to Edgar’s music. There is no escaping that, once you’re “in”.

I met Edgar back in 2002 or 2003, when he was one of the youngest members of Ignacio Baca Lobera’s composition class in Querétaro, Mexico. He had already written a few pieces, and it was evident to me that he was brilliant and utterly committed to his music. As I got to work with him (I have premièred not less than four of his works in the past years), I could witness his passion for creation, sound and music firsthand. I have no doubt in considering him now as being one of the most talented and relevant Mexican musicians of his generation.

This album, Differánce, is a particularly welcome token of the faith many of us have put in Edgar’s work. It comprises several of his most significant pieces from the period 2004-2008. All the works contained in Differánce are electro-acoustic. Some of them feature the mix of acoustic instruments with electro-acoustic media (Memento, piano; Apnea, guitar; and 8¿?, bassoon). The rest are purely electro-acoustic works (Dogma also features video). An aspect that all works in the album denote is an extraordinary sensibility towards sound and its treatment. Acoustical and electro-acoustical sound sources are blended in such an organic way, that they are one and the same. They build a sound. Edgar knows his craft, and we can appreciate the mastery of his sound constructions over and over throughout the record. But there is always the question of what to do with those sounds constructed. As I mentioned before, it is the energy flow which binds this music together and makes it into a force to be reckoned with. An intense ride which takes the listener through different stages of emotionally charged sound. It is, after all, music: Electro-acoustic music which has found an impeccable and rare balance between craft and emotion. Another beautiful mystery of life.