(The Locus Of)

Rarely The Locus Of leaves us wanting with their products, especially the most recent 3-inch series which presents field recording-based music of the highest order. Calarco is a new name to yours truly, but his mini CD shows that he’s worthy to play in the top team of sound artists working in this twilight zone. “Raiz de invierno”, starting from both its title and the cover photograph, is clearly deriving from a winter day in an undefined urban landscape. It reminds me of a time in the early 90s, when in mid August’s afternoons (apropos of winter) one could still go on a hill dominating the Roman area where I grew up and hear just a humming pulse, rarefied motors and an unidentifiable groan symbolizing the absence of people who had left for the summer holiday. Something absolutely unrepeatable today. In the same way, here, the composer chose the whooshes and the reverberant metropolitan presences as interlocutors for our soul, baptizing his creation with a masterfully recorded wash of heavy rain somewhere around middle track. Well known elements, yet very finely assembled. A great piece.