COMPULSIVE SEEKING

The myth of the “elsewhere” or exoticism is the fascination of the distant which comes mainly from the desire of escaping society and its materialistic obsession for consumism and economic wealth. Generally art relies on the fact that there will always be a place in the world, a refuge, a shelter where those who are not attracted by this frenetic way of living can seek their own comfort. Primitivism affirms that people of a primitive society have a stronger ethical and moral value in a sort of idealistic way, which is enough for me to dig deeper into myself and come up with a sort of metaphorical road map, with interesting places that my mind wants to visit while the whole world keeps spinning in the same direction.

Santiago Nasar (Crónica de una muerte anunciada, Gabriel Garcia Marquez, 1981) was victim of the unavoidable human destiny, especially in relation with the limited time we human can experience on the planet, time that should be considered as our only wealth and that should be spent mostly to enrich our own life experience. Socrate said that “unexamined life is not worth living”, therefore comes the necessity to build our own world, an alternative environment where people can find shelter, a sort of therapeutic heaven made of things, shapes and colors that are the opposite of our everyday experience.

Calle Nicaragua as the gravitational center of Malcolm Lowry's journey Into the Volcano is the place where the author constantly faces death in his altered perception, the uncomfort zone that every travel needs once he ventures in the outside world. There are 12 tracks on this album. The fascination around the number as the hours in the day, the month in the year and the chapters in the book comes from Lowry as a sort of aspiration towards a more spiritual centric life. The length of the album also takes into consideration an old concept of making music, dividing the whole production into two sides (A/B) of the same duration, roughly 20 minutes each, in order to fit on a physical format.

Iquitos is a tribute to the brave old man who decides to pursue his desire and be expressive, disregarding the limits that his aging body imposes him. Art in this case is something glorious, utopistic, full of danger and probably unachievable, like building an opera house in the middle of the jungle.

Anatolia is divided in two. It is the connection between the west and the east, between Europe and the people of the steppe. It can be sunny and snowy at the same time because of its vastness, like the switch between two worlds.

Okinawa despite being famous for its long living inhabitants and for its sandy beaches, was also famous for a battle where the east and west clashed once again in history, in one of the most cruel battles of the whole Pacific ocean. The melancholic guitar riff of the song refers to the peace of mind that was found once the battle was over and the memories that inevitably bring the listener back to those days.

Then going along this rocky trail comes love. Love can be found in many different living beings, places, situations or other humans. Love in this case (Don’t take the flowers) is connected to sacrifice, to the choice of going in a certain direction, to leave things behind in the illusion that at the point of return, everything will be left as it was before. The title comes from a sign that I found on a tombstone in Mexico, where visitors were kindly asked "not to take the flowers" in a sort of compassionate ultimate wish coming from the relatives of the deceased.

Acapulco describes something that has been through a change in a nostalgic way. According to locals it was one of the places that those who were in Mexico back in the days shouldn’t have missed, due to its position on the ocean and to the fact that the city was going through its golden era. Nowadays things have changed and Acapulco doesn’t seem to be much of the place it was anymore and it has become more a place to avoid than one to visit.

Compulsive Seeking is mostly an instrumental album. It is conceived to be heard while moving from place to place. The eternal movement from A to B is a topic that I already talked about in my previous work (Planets) and that will be always part of my production.

FOR THE TIME BEING

For the Time Being is a work about the concept of time and presence, about having a strong connection with the times we are living without looking back or looking forward, about being there now and feeling a sort of eternal dissatisfaction that leads to a prediction of the future that won’t be as bright as the present. The work also tries to look elsewhere in order to escape this prediction, taking the mind in a place far away from the ordinary where time can be stopped.

The Indian Summer is about the playground where I grew up and the state it finds itself nowadays. The water pouring from the sky affects all the local users, all the “drunken kids” that symbolize the times we are living. The element of water is a constant of the album. In Like the Sand, oh the Quicksand it becomes a “vast entity” that “takes over everything”, predicting a sort of a future “Waterworld”.

As in most of my works, there is always a reference to a counterpart, a different unidentified figure, sometimes physically present and sometimes not, that helps the author to go through life in a more harmonic way, keeping him away from the weight of human living, despite the fact of being often strongly criticized and diminished morally and physically (the Lacanican “Non sens du rapport sexuel”, Planets).

The same blue talks about the eternal dissatisfaction of having everything and nothing at the same time, living a self-focused life that leaves a lot of emptiness despite the freedom and independence that it gives.

The album is also centered on the idea of the body as an instrument of protest and pleasure at the same time. La Revolución desde tu Cuerpo somehow justifies the use of it as a sort of violent way of protesting “dulce razón para hacer muertos”, a body that can be exposed, transformed and vilified in a kafkian way as in You can find me in the Air inspired by The Metamorphosis.

A SHAPELESS FIGURE

A Shapeless Figure is my first work and it is mostly developed around the concept of absence in a very material way, in terms of living an existence without a vital counterpart, someone who can show you who you are by reflecting the image of yourself, showing you all the dots that are not connected, brightening the darkest part of you and giving a certain lightness that is fundamental in everyday life.

The Dreamcatcher approaches this concept describing a life of a person who missed her ride to happiness, who made up a choice too late and now she is stuck with a daily dull ordinary life (“I will draw/a picture in black and white/of you trying to catch the life/you have never had”).

A Shapeless Figure #5 shows the same situation from a self-destroying perspective. The break up has affected the main character at the point of seeing the self vanishing anyway, perishing under insecurity and lack of stability.

Certain things once they happen can not be taken back. It is the case in Shoot the Piano player where the author clearly tries to tell the other people to move on, to keep going because what is left will not come back.

Also in A Coincidence the theme is the same: two people who used to live together and share happy moments, casually meet in the street after a long time having not seen each other. The author decides to bypass his former partner without saying hello, because what is left can not be taken back “You have just passed me by/by why should I smile/you have never been so far/I have never been so close to the point”.

IT'S ALL A BIG NOTHING

It's all a big nothing is my first EP containing tracks regarding fragility, absence, anxiety, love, passion, desire and other topics mostly regarding relations between two human beings.