The latest release of Chilean composer René Muñoz Córdova on the Petcord netlabel, la arquitectura sónica de Amacelin & Luyelval, explores opposite approaches to music in two composotions that go by the name Amacelin and Luyelval.

The first one, stretching over eight movements, takes a basic set of chopped samples from flute, strings, piaono and guitar and reassembles those in different ways. Reminiscent of classic role models, this could be labelled variations on a timbre, with the main difference being the addition and integration of processed and digitally generated sound sources. Apart from that, René Muñoz Córdova makes frequent use of pauses, even going so far as fragmenting parts to contrast them with more gently flowing tones. Amacelin prominently features sharp contrasts, from soft to loud, gentle to harsh, calm to abrasive there are all palettes of stylistic means to portrait Amacelin.

Luyeval follows a different route, in that it shares more characteristics of an improvisation. Not developing a story, but more of a description of an unfamiliar scenery. A feeling of unrest and tension persists and finds no relief in the dialogue of two grainy, seemingly stochastic tone sequences. They follow a logic of an alien language, periodically give way to contrasting motives or listen to the hovering drone in the background, similar to the humming of a generator. Luyeval succeeds in describing a scenery without prior history, just a constantly pushing forward presence. Whilst a stochastic approach is apparent, it still is of a limited nature, as the overall arrangement is the result of human selection and interception. Thus Luyelval still shares characteristics of a musical work and demonstrates that the distribution of contrasts and pitches that define a composition are not dependent on tonality.

Olliver Wichmann

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