Francisco López — Fango De Euriptéridos

Francisco López' "Fango De Euriptéridos ", one of the earliest of his countless works, was originally released on highly limited cassette in 1990, and now finally sees remaster and reissue on this 3" CDr from Agxivatein.  They've opted to unite side A and B into a single 18 minute track, an improvised and loosely thematic foray into the most impossibly frigid submerged depths.  Blunted impacts, scraping/whistling resonances and stifled rumblings make up the entire sound palette. 

Though supposedly cleaned up, this release still sounds entirely muddy and indistinct, and veiled by distracting tape hiss, as if this CDr was sourced from a beat up old copy that had been lying in Lopez' closet since 1990 (a likely possibility).  On occasion cheap sound can enhance the 'grimness' of a recording like this, but alas, not here.  It sounds like Lopez tried to clean this historic recording up and failed, leaving it an awkward limbo.

The jam itself has some inspired qualities.  'Dark ambient' hardly existed in 1990, but many of the classic elements and tricks of the genre can be found here in vague prototypical form.  Lopez arranges contact sounds into periodic mantras, the only real structural element in the piece.  The subtle tonalities of grainy, degraded bells and gongs give an ominous, anticipatory feeling to the track, saving it from complete sterility.

The first half is muddled, cloudy and so full of sound that it comes across as impenetrable or opaque.  There is a more comfortable openness in the piece's closing minutes, where a murmering shimmer of a drone undulates quietly beneath understated wisps and gusts of monstrous breath.  This part of the track is very immersive and I wish some of the sonic clutter was cleared away elsewhere in the piece.

So I would only recommend "Fango De Euriptéridos" to rabid fans of early dark ambience, who could enjoy it for its historical value and air of obscurity.  For everyone else, this is but a sloppily documented jam session of decent but unessential quality, and though I've not heard much of Lopez' other work, I'm sure he's since surpassed it many times.  This is one for the collectors only.