Francisco López (Madrid, 1964) is one of the key exponents of experimental and electroacoustic music. His sound installations acknowledge the power of sound to transcend the perception and emotions of the people that participate in them. López has chosen the location for its acoustic conditions and installs a sound system that invites visitors to become submerged in a virtual sound world with extreme contrasts. He favors the exploration of sound as well as our own interior, hence the rejection of visual aspects as he leaves the installation in almost complete darkness, enabling him to penetrate a "virtual reality of sound" in a kind of ritual that is both collective and individual. López is internationally recognized as one of the key figures in experimental music. His experience in the sphere of sound creation and his field recording work spans over more than two decades, in which time he has developed a highly personal and iconoclastic universe of sound that explores the limits of perception whilst also looking for sensorial and spiritual expansion through sound. In his manipulation of natural recordings, over the years this biologist/musician has developed the foundations of what is known as "absolute concrete music", an approach to sound that uses nature as a springboard for recreating strangely beautiful parallel worlds and virtual realities. López has performed hundreds of concerts, conducted field recording projects and produced sound installations in 50 countries and in some of the most important international museums, galleries and festivals. His extensive catalog of sound pieces has been edited by 150 record companies around the world and he has collaborated with more than 100 international artists, both live and in the studio. Francisco López has received honorable mentions on two occasions at the Ars Electrónica festival along with first prize in the First Sound Art Competition 'Broadcasting Art', jointly organized by RNE (Spanish National Radio) and the Museo de Arte Contemporáneo de Castilla y León (MUSAC).
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LP
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KRXN 017LP
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Francisco López offers a brand-new field recording composition based on the recordings he did in the island of Tenerife whilst visiting for a performance at the Keroxen Festival, 2020. Internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene, Francisco has an ear-like gift to point his microphones (and our ears) to the most special and unlikely of sound sources. For almost forty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, the presentation here is not unlike his most famous and celebrated works whilst still maintaining its unique relevance among a prolific catalogue of sounds. Entitled Hidden Island Music the work explores its aforementioned "hidden sounds" of Tenerife with a high sensorial mix of environmental and "industrial" recordings taken in and around the Massifs of Teno and Anaga and later composed into a unique sonic journey through the huge sound pits of this rugged region of north Tenerife. Another masterful work from one of the masters of his craft, shifting from the limits of our perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, a profound and transcendental listening open to sensory and spiritual expansion. Original environmental sound matter recorded at multiple locations in Macizo de Teno and Macizo de Anaga (Tenerife), November 2020. Evolved, composed, edited, mixed and mastered at "mobile messor" (Tenerife, Den Haag) and Dune Studio (Loosduinen), 2020-21. Cover photography by Néstor Torrens Back. Photography by Francisco López.
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CD
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SR 425CD
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Anima Ardens is a new soundtrack creation by Francisco López. Eleven men, eleven dancers in constant nudity, throw themselves, body and soul into Anima Ardens or "Burning Breath", highlighting the diversity of their bodies and origins. Trance rituals or being in shamanic trance, takes anyone to the source of their emotions. All surrounded by the organic sound environments of Francisco López. Comes in a digipack sleeve.
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GODREC 022LP
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2014 release. Francisco López is not only famous for his prolific sound creations, but also for different aspects of sound manipulations. Since his very beginnings, he explores different fields of sound and almost entire his work belongs to the series untitled. untitled#295 is a piece created specifically for two sides of vinyl. Besides Lopez's famous moving soundscapes, it's the pulse that makes this work driving. It's not a regular pulse, it's one with irregular accents. Slowly developing, it takes the listener insensibly into void and darkness being an extremely tempting work for claustrophobic experiences.
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LP/USB CARD
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SR 346LP
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Full-length original audio piece on 24-bit/48kHz digital USB flat memory-card with non-audio blank etched vinyl. Edition of 500 copies numbered and signed by Francisco López. La Selva is an immersion into the sound environments of a tropical rain forest in the Caribbean lowlands of Costa Rica. An astonishing natural sonic web created by a multitude of sounds from rain, waterfalls, insects, frogs, birds, mammals, and even plants, through a day cycle during the rainy season. A powerful acousmatic broadband sound environment of thrilling complexity. And above all, a tour de force of profound listening. Original recordings done at La Selva Biological Station during the rainy seasons of 1995 and 1996. La Selva was premiered in an acousmatic performance at Teatro Fanal of the Fanal Contemporary Art Center in San José, Costa Rica, in August 1997. Originally released as a CD by V2_Archief in 1998. "After two years of failed attempts with multiple test pressings from the best plants and cutting engineers in Europe, the inherent constraints of vinyl led to an unavoidable conclusion: this audio piece cannot be released on vinyl... many of the naturally intense sections of 'La Selva' with insect and amphibian calls were rendered awfully distorted, with filtering solving virtually nothing at the expense of dramatic dullness... That is why this 'natural' sound piece has been finally reissued digitally, in its entirety, and with the best possible sound." --López
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LP
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TAIGA 030LP
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Pressing of 300 copies on crystal-clear 200-gram virgin vinyl packaged in a custom letterpress jacket printed, die-cut, and hand-assembled at Studio On Fire in Minneapolis, with particular care taken to retain the fine detail of the cover's microscopic type. "Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. For more than 30 years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion" --Pedro Higueras, Sonom Studios. "UNTITLED#300 is an LP based on multi-track field recordings I did in 2011 of a large colony of seagulls in a group of small islands right in front of the Moroccan-Algerian border, together with hydrophone and contact mic recordings of sea creatures underwater from the same location (side A and B of the LP, respectively). Being interested in going beyond a traditional 'soundscape' perspective, I've played freely with mixing and editing, in an unorthodox way, different multi-channel recordings I did. Side A ('abovewater') is the large seagull colony. In side B ('underwater') what you hear is predominantly millions of very small shrimp-like crustaceans, dolphin sonar (the beating pattern of the first section), and occasional fish (the 'frog-like' calls)" --Francisco López. Original environmental sound matter recorded in the Chafarinas Islands off the coast of Morocco, summer 2011. Edited, mixed, and mastered at mobile messor, The Hague, the Netherlands, summer 2012. Field work carried out with the collaboration and support of the SIGEIN-Chafarinas research group (Integral Ecological Management System of the Chafarinas Islands), directed by Francisco J. Acosta (Universidad Complutense de Madrid, Spain) and coordinated by Javier Zapata (Spanish National Park Service).
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CD
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IMPREC 415CD
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Untitled #274 was composed by Francisco López and performed by Kasper T. Toeplitz at GRM Studios in Paris, France. Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of sound art and experimental music. For more than thirty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound, and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. Kasper T. Toeplitz has worked with academic research organizations, such as GMEM, GRM, IRCAM, and Radio-France, as well as with experimental musicians, such as Éliane Radigue, Zbigniew Karkowski, Dror Feiler, Tetsuo Furudate, Phill Niblock, and Art Zoyd. Citing Giacinto Scelsi and Iannis Xenakis as influences, his early work was mostly written for traditional instruments.
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CD
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SR 304CD
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Part 3 in Sub Rosa's new series Framework is an extension of their Concrete Electronics Noise series, a brand new mix-up of unusual conceptions of sound material by young unknown composers, well-known not-so-young composers and old but clever composers. Limited to 700 copies.
Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. Over the past 30 years, he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in 60 countries of the five continents. His extensive catalog of sound pieces (with live and studio collaborations with over 100 international artists) has been released by more than 200 record labels worldwide, and he has been awarded three times with honorary mentions at the Ars Electronica Festival. Untitled #244 was created with the evolution of original environmental recordings done at multiple underwater and abovewater locations in the Paraná and Paraguay rivers (Argentina and Paraguay).
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CD
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BBOY 012CD
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"World renowned composer Francisco López has by now an extensive discography and is seen regularly performing his music live around the globe. Yet only a very small portion of his extensive discography reflects his activities on stage. Therefore we are proud to release this excellent recording of a Francisco López concert from 1999, taped in 's-Hertogenbosch, The Netherlands. In a dark room, López sat behind the mixing board and mixed his various sound sources blindfolded, whilst his audience was also blindfolded. Unlike his many 'silent' (or more accurately) studio CD's, López here builds the sound from extreme silence to extreme loudness. This CD comes with a black blindfold which is recommended for use during playback of the CD at home."
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SUBS 001
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"Untitled (1999) is released late 2001 to coincide with Lopez' first Australian tour. Comprising 7 untitled works ranging from one minute to eighteen minutes in length and recorded over the past three years, the release presents a wide ranging selection of Lopez' styles, typically representative of his dynamic live performances. Distant, subtle oceans of processed sound environments and selective use of silence contrast with powerful waves of full-frequency drones. Sound for deep listening at high volumes. Minimally packaged in a clear slimline jewel case, Untitled (1999) is released in a limited edition of 500 copies."
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CD
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SED 024CD
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More minimal electronics from this composer from Madrid, a 1997 work commissioned for a dance theatre work directed by the Paul Lemon Company. One 46-minute piece of distant, geographical drone.
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