Carme López — Quintela

Female artists have been central to the evolution of drone and minimalist music from Pauline Oliveros and her pioneering of deep listening, Eliane Radigue, Laurie Spiegel through to current practitioners such as Suzanne Ciani, Sarah Davachi and Kali Malone. It is from this stable of great female artists that Spanish composer Carme López has sprung - bringing to the table her own unique brand of music centered on the Galician bagpipe; fitting given that she is also a researcher of the traditional oral music of Galicia. But López takes her musical adventures to a different level, expanding elements of sound to create ambient and experimental soundscapes while pushing the limit of her chosen instrument and extracting a deep and rich sonic experience all within a minimalist avant-garde framework. It is exactly this aesthetic that we find on her debut album Quintela.

Structured as a four-movement piece (with prologue and epilogue) Quintela stretches from the barely perceptible, air flowing deftly across the reed, to all-compassing high pitched discordant pseudo-noise. While inherently analogue, this album feels digital and electronic in its performance leaving us as listeners wondering how she is able to create such a vast array of sound and modulations using just one instrument.

The overarching theme is space and transcendence. This is not an album where we are jolted out of our subconscious slumber, instead this is music that induces a meditative state and goes some way to explaining why and how Lopez is able to establish herself as part of an all-important lineage.  In ‘Prologue – Cando a pean me mata, a alegria dame alento’, Lopez introduces her instrument and there is no mistaking that for the next forty or so minutes the focus of our attention is to be her beloved Galician pipe. Once oriented, however, the path swiftly changes on the first piece proper, ‘I:QUE? A Betty Chaos’ where for nearly two minutes we are enveloped by the subliminal sound of air entering the pipe, before single notes make an appearance. Not quite discordant but certainly superficially random with the atmosphere building at an incredibly slow pace; multilayered the high notes sit atop an almost scratchy low-pitched drone. ‘II: MATICOLO. Aos cans da casa: Piri, Sil, Duma e Mouri’ continues in the same vein but has a much more lulling effect, the notes undulating in such a meditative and soothing fashion while carrying an underlying tinge of harmony.

The complexity at play is rather astounding and continues into the next act, ‘III: AVÓS. A Pepe e Manuela’. Similarly meditative, the direction changes slowly but this time sounding more churchlike in its presentation; this is pipe organ rather than pipe. ‘IV: CACHELOS. A César de Farbán’ is back to pure drone. One note holding the entire piece together as pipe notes and percussive sounds accompany this singular journey. Lopez’ ingenuity and sonic landscapes are truly enthralling as she brings proceedings to a close for the Epilogue, right back where we started with the pipe in its purest form building in urgency until that final fade out. An extraordinary journey. Listen here