Album Review: Andrew C. Kidd
Escupemetralla ‘Fe, Esperanza Y Caridad’
(Nøvak) 1st December 2018
Escupemetralla were first brought to my attention by the editor of this digital revue who received a blank CD in the post accompanied by an enigmatic message stating that it will “send Apple computers to sleep”. Fe, Esperanza Y Caridad (Faith, Hope and Charity) is revealed as the title of the album once the play button is pressed.
The words ‘faith, hope and charity’ have biblical origins; they appear in the First Epistle to the Corinthians. The cover photograph, a religious triptych containing symbols that represent the supernatural virtues of Christianity, provides further evidence to support this conjecture. The musical duo from Barcelona even remark on “Mary having given birth to Jesus parthenogenetically”* and propose that “Christ was a female”. Yet their allusion to Erich von Däniken, the author of Chariots of the Gods?†, on Petroglifo descubierto en un cálculo renal extends far beyond the theological; it is positively ontological!
According to the album notes, Fe, Esperanza Y Caridad is “to be composed, recorded and mixed by Muhammad and Muhammad” in 2025. Escupemetralla clarify this statement by describing themselves as “virtual entities that will actually exist in several years’ time”. These truly eternalistic assertions are perhaps most palpable in the second half of the album as the listener evaporates into The Orb-level realms of deep space exploration. L.A.I.K.A. features a barking dog (presumably an homage to the Soviet canine that was the first animal to orbit the Earth) as well as intermittent radio contact with cosmonaut Vladimir Komarov just prior to his Soyuz 1 module crash in the 1960s. See-sawing low rumbles and analogue noises swirl around Pop industrial artificial del Tecno Núcleo and repetitive cut-effect sequences hammer away on Gas de Nasqueron (eagle-eyed readers will recognise Nasqueron from the novel The Algebraist by Iain Banks). The murky ambient undertones, pings of active sonar, muffled lub-dubs of a beating heart, echoey radio static and near-euphoria of the synths on Albedo 7 give the impression that it is a transmission that has only been partially received.
In terms of the music, inky black marks from the industrial music sub-genre stamp appear all over the album. A 4-4, snare-heavy breakbeat rhythm drops part way through Pastelería industrial and heavily programmed bops and squelches are interrupted by demonic cockerel sound effects. Cmmrcl mss is a sonic headbutt that seeks to emulate the glass smashing and metal banging percussive high jinks of Einstürzende Neubauten and the pop track rulebook rewriting of The Commercial album by The Residents (Ralph Records, 1980). There are also a couple of recognisable samples thrown in for good measure; sporadic lines from Frankie Goes To Hollywood’s Relax can be heard on ¿Raspas mi orpón en Urano? and the metamorphosed bass-line on Paso de insecto has been borrowed from Blitzkrieg Bop by the Ramones.
Synthetic sounds are king on Fe, Esperanza Y Caridad. The driving bass sequence on Holy conception is the constant in an equation of samples that circle around metallic-sounding beeps, blips and boings. The track is anything but formulaic; Escupemetralla’s inspiration came from listening to a twenty five-minute version of Grateful Dead’s masterpiece of improvisation, Dark Star (Warner Bros, 1968). Petroglifo descubierto en un cálculo renal is Morton Subotnick reincarnate. Sporadic pan-range synth sequences float around innumerable drone sounds. The sub-bass module comes at you like a breath underwater and the lowest notes lie deeper than a depth gauge in Atlantis. Strained strings become a unified harmony at the midpoint as alarm bells ring away frantically in the background. Escupemetralla also happily experiment with their track tempos. The accelerando on Paso de Insecto pushes the polyrhythmic synths and distorted voice codec into a chaotic finale and the calando on Petroglifo descubierto en un cálculo renal opposes the low frequency oscillators that slowly phase towards a peak.
From the theological to the xenological, Fe, Esperanza Y Caridad is a ‘musical polysemy’ that draws on many influences. To draw any inferences on the deeper meaning contained within its references would be an attempt to prove ignotum per ignotius. One thing I am certain of is that I look forward to hearing it again when it is eventually recorded in the year 2025.
*parthenogenesis: from the Greek parthenos (virgin) and genesis (origin)
†von Däniken sought to explore possible extraterrestrial influences on early human civilisation
Words: Andrew C. Kidd
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