A new compilation from Séance Centre – which has mined the library of the Palo Alto multi-instrumentalist Jon Iverson and spotlighted the hallucinatory Night of Power of the homebrewed New Jersey duo Abdur Razzaq and Rafiyq – and the archival project Smiling C focuses on an obscure network of Mexican electronic and electroacoustic composers from the eighties and early nineties. Culled from a contemporary wasteland of cassette tapes, private presses and public access television stations and billed as an ethnomusicological pursuit where ancient Mesoamerican traditions, pre-Hispanic ocarinas and flutes, ritual chants and the teponaztli and huéhuetl drums of the Aztecs warped and weft the tapestries of ambient music, the seventeen tracks of Triángulos De Luz Y Espacios De Sombra stretch from slapped cajon percussion and other Afro-Caribbean rhythms to proggy chord changes, brassy banda and New Age or Fourth World aesthetics.
From the glistening Afro-Caribbean incantation of ‘Brisa’ by Antonio Zepeda and Eblen Macari to the progressive rock chords of ‘Dafne’ by Armando Velasco, on the track ‘Clarion’ by Macari strummed strings, mallet percussion and shakers stand in for synth pads and kicks on what might otherwise pass as a quintessential slice of eighties synth-pop. There is a bit of Peter Gabriel or even Phil Collins about some of the tracks, with their twinkling keys, temperate drums and abundance of gated reverb. The tresillo pattern and the bass tumbao are ubiquitous and there are six-stringed serenades, windswept reeds and lucid field recordings, with ‘Non Observan’ by Germán Bringas a late standout as the producer and improviser takes an incessant synth-pop beat and pairs it with bifurcating, chanted folk vocals, percussive squiggles and louche jazzy squalls, inspired by the likes of Fred Firth and John Zorn while serving as a prelude to his opening of Jazzorca, which remains an important venue for free jazz and experimental music in the heart of Mexico City.
