Ferran Fages
Radi d'Or

Chamber work for 5 players:

Olga Ábalos - flute & alto saxophone
Lali Barriere - sinewaves
Tom Chant - soprano and tenor saxophones
Ferran Fages - acoustic guitar
Pilar Subirá - percussion

Recorded in Barcelona, December 2011

Total Time: 36:09

Reviews

“A whistle, a whirr, a low and slowly morphing drone, and this quiet but endlessly fascinating and timbrally jam-packed composition lifts off the ground into an atmosphere of its own making.

The sounds mix, merge and meld together with the softness of what Debussy was loathed to call an "impressionistic" score, but the language is that of European improvisational modernity, to whatever degree Fages' score actually involves improvisation. Timbres take on a level of distinction only to lose it, as can be heard when what sounds like muted kettle drums emerge at around 1:20 only to disappear, unceremoniously, some twenty seconds later. Similarly, is that the quietest possible bowed percussion, courtesy of Pilar Subira, at 12:14, just before Olga Abalos flute and Fages guitar enter in sinewy microtonal counterpoint?

The first fifteen minutes offer up a series of soft-edged fragments, a convergence and divergence of tone and texture that acts as a sort of overture to what follows. The rest of the piece is a continuously evolving wash of multileveled tone, sometimes blending to form the most achingly beautiful sonorities, sometimes traversing and re-traversing the microtonal spectrum. The result is a focused and absolutely meditative journey that places the previous fragments in sharp relief.

As is Another Timbre's wont, this 36-minute tour de force thrives on space and ambience. The soundstage is wide, and open-air listening is especially gratifying. That said, headphones reveal areas of the sonic spectrum, especially in Tom Chant's saxophone overtones and Lali Barriere's sine waves, that may be lost in an open environment. Indeed, the sine waves serve as the glue that holds much of the mixture together, and their range and diversity is nothing short of amazing. In terms of sheer beauty of sound and unity of purpose, this is now one of the best releases in Another Timbre's rapidly growing catalogue.”       Marc Medwin, Squid’s Ear

“A piece that's more unusual and, I suspect, more involved than is apparent at first blush. It opens with crickets, then the ensemble creating low sounds that have an outdoors feel, including (I think) rubbed, deep drums. There's feedback, usually contained, occasionally yawping, long flute and saxophone lines, all kind of swirling gently together, beginning to congeal. For a while, the strands slowly circle one another--flute, scraped guitar, those rubbed moans, the sine waves acting as a tenuous cohering factor. Ultimately, matters coalesce and we have a kind of drone situation, though complicated and ever-shifting, with ringing tones and harsher buzzer emerging from the mix. The work resides here for its second half, a kind of shimmering, opalescent pool in which lengthy, plaintive, descending tones often appear. Towards the work's conclusion, there are small eddies of disruption, the individual elements regaining some separate character though they've moved, since the piece's inception, to a different territory. It has a very strong character of its own, subtly unique.

"Radi d'Or" is a release that grew on me upon multiple re-listenings as I became more convinced that there was some governing principle(s) at work which I still can't truly discern. Fages has revealed several facets of his musical personality in the past, from outright noise to virtual song-forms and more; this is yet another addition to that profile, and a welcome one. I really hope to hear more in this direction and from this ensemble generally--sounds like a really strong group.”     Brian Olewnick - Just Outside

“On rare occasions you encounter mysterious music that seems to have seeped out from a dream. David Toop and Max Eastley’s ‘Divination of the Bowhead Whale’ has that air of the inexplicable. So too does Ferran Fages’s Radi d’Or. Recorded in Barcelona, on the guitarist’s home turf, and bearing a Catalan title that translates as ‘radius of gold’, you might reasonably expect a composition that radiates colour and light. But this music is muted, crepuscular and arcane. Keeping Fages company in its twilit zone are percussionist Pilar Subirá, wind players Olga Ábalos and Tom Chant, and Lali Barrière using sinewaves. Individual voices are identifiable most of the time, but none obtrudes from the ensemble fabric of frictive rumbles, hesitant tones, frail drones and threshold whispers.”
Julian Cowley, The Wire