Murcof – The Alias Sessions

The Leaf Label

Fernando Corona has been pushing the boundaries of recorded sound as Murcof for some twenty years or so now and for this latest, he is reunited with The Leaf Label; a fitting home for his restless innovation.

The work on this double album was started four years ago as pieces for the Geneva-based dance company Alias. The fact that it was produced for such a concern explains a lot of the fluidity that encompasses the work. Over two discs, the explorations in sound and texture run from beat-fuelled insistence to a more organic, deeper sensation and this dichotomy is a perfect evocation of the dancers‘ movements.

The sound of thunder, distant bursts of activity, the generation of electricity on other planets; they all ally to throw the scope of the album wide open from the start. Burrs of noise, burrowing, reaching, shifting movement, ghostly piano notes lending an air of humanity but desolate and distant. The juxtaposition of sounds is often striking; they can appear as from nowhere, vibrant and purposeful heralds of activity.

The insistent thud of beats changes the mood and somehow brings things down to earth a little more. Violin brings a melancholy but militaristic air, a lost battlefield beckons, the whine of voices merging with the crumbling beats, all the sounds distorted as if hearing them anew.

The slow, inexorable build up at the heart of the first disc is riven with rhythms that seem out of place or uncertain of their true nature, emerging from the empty quarter, a vicious wind the only companion. Murcof comes across so much like the sound alchemist, waving his hand and conjuring up storms or natural disasters, an unsettling experience with such a variety of noises covering so much ground.

It is a wonderful idea to think of dancers moving at liberty to this torrent that finally descends to eerie silence, the desolate plains of a slow moving space image, the sun revolving, slowly bursting, a hint of techno merging with a Tangerine Dream drift but with other impulses that draw to a gradual conclusion. It is a lot to take in and that is only disc one.

Disc two was recorded later and its thudding alien heartbeat intro puts it into similar territory, but everything is desiccated and strange. A synth scream cuts through the throb, its drama huge and immediate, orchestral tones swelling and sweeping. You can sense the fluidity of the dancers as the pieces move through passages, the addition of electronic flourishes expanding previous motifs and moving them ever further forward. Scratches break the patterns , their unearthly fluff a sonic disturbance acting like odd, random elements, as if the smooth oscillations shouldn’t be trusted.

Sounds tear and fracture from one another, the smooth facade given another more sinister perspective and sweeping through the listener’s open mind. There is something more organic here, a pushing further of the fluidity, a dawning realisation as the journey comes to an end that maybe we are arriving. Modular synth tones lend a warm vibrancy to the atmosphere; a sense that the familiar and unfamiliar are joining, yet somehow drifting away.

The Alias Sessions would have been extraordinary to see in its original state ;but even with visual element removed, it is still a work of huge scope and imagination. It keeps Murcof at the forefront of this sort of sound design and begs the question, where next? The three LP sets look lovely and you should just go and snap one up.

-Mr Olivetti-