Weil’s Trip

Weil’s Trip.mp3

Gerry had died the night before.

In between telephone calls, dreams and prayers I managed to talk him.

He
seemed
younger.

Inmersed in pride and sadness I told him we had things to do, that he shouldn’t leave

- at the time I didn’t realize that I don’t tend to think in death as a determinant key in relationships -.

With his innocent and wise vision he made me understand we would still be working together…

We should wait for me to wake up.

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

+

 Weil’s Trip.mp3

-
is part of La Uña, El Martillo y Los Pensamientos Imposibles (TBA)

The Maker

Being time,
seeing my hands become time
(constructing, destroying and composing while I listen, think and walk),
is my new obsession.

The Maker.mp3

For years I sought the inexistence of time. Despite searching and forcing myself to get rid of the notion of time, it was impossible to do so. At times I managed –just for a few seconds– to feel the absence, but soon it returned stronger than ever. Apparently still. Invincible.

The fight against time is exhausting. Caving in to time is even more so.

One day I decided to try and become time. If I could make myself time, real time, I would be able to battle it.

Since time destroys it all, I rid myself of everything I deemed useless around me, timely and without a doubt, according to my new criterion.

Time creates. I began to create. Our notion of time does not allow us to ignore its apparent linearity. Our creations help us cloud it. Being time, the wait ceased to exist. I created and destroyed only aware of space and my own working hands.

It’s just that sometimes I cannot recognize my own hands.

El Hacedor.mp3

Composing is pursuing an idea.

.

El Hacedor is part of Escritorio 

Inferno

Inferno.mp3

When should I rest? When should I work? Should I work just enough to appreciate both work and rest? Define rest.

“Here, to the right, the bar of artists and writers, scene of so many intellectual and sensual orgies”.¹

I compose. Play the piano. Read. Think. Write. Work. Rest. Love. Dream. I sleep. And the rest? How much do I sleep?

“Puzzled, I am unable to utter a single word. If I deliberately cause some harm, how much wouldn’t I hurt without wanting to?”.¹

I move forward in this world, between puzzlement and arrogance, between –ever less so- society. I am puzzlement and arrogance. I advance. Why in this world?

“At night, the poor souls who suffer from insomnia and nightmares wander around in prairies and forests, in order to tire themselves to sleep”.¹

Little by little music entangles me and forgets about me. I must place some notes. It never ends.

——— Dominus regit me, et nihil mihi deerit.² ———

Inferno.mp3
is part of acantilado

¹ August Strindberg. Inferno
² Book of Psalms. Psalm #22

The dance of oblivion

Part of a concert for three pianos,
woodwinds and percussion.

—-
First Part: A new cycle

- The dance of oblivion: The new cycle.mp3 -

The new cycle is about to begin.

A crowd is waiting for the end of an era. They’ll soon disappear. Soon the inhabitants of older villages will choose a “witness” and make him the new people’s god. The rest of them will pilgrim forever.

The caravan is coming.

The elder god had his moment. He is old and doesn’t fear. He is just sad. He had forgotten this destiny & now attempts to explain everything again to him & his children. The people barely listen, they are eager of oblivion.

The caravan is coming.

Memories begin. The houses are getting cleaned and closed. Some have the false belief that they’ll return. The people, now united, hear their fate approaching.

Flying over the people – infinite – it ventures.

In the meantime many stopped believing in the coming and going. The ideals and beliefs mutated, diversified. In the meantime the targets got lost. We became many. The coming is cyclical.

Between drums, dances and life it devastates the town, it grows and immediately leaves.

Among empty buildings is the one, the new god. The witness must create new laws, seasons, wealth and people. He must create a new town where everyone will be waiting to be chosen or be doomed to disable people and choose witnesses for the rest of the eternity.

The new cycle is about to begin.

- The dance of oblivion: The new cycle.mp3 -

Walking

“The windmill has gone, but the wind is still there”
Victor Hugo, Les Misérables

- The sea & the night.mp3 -

Texture

“If the trees had been standing
so much star’s solitude,
then we stand the death
in the glowworm shadow.
If silent is the eternity 
then we can feel the course of the universe.”

Vicente Gerbasi, Los Colores Ocultos

I tend to believe that any non-final take in a recording is a canvas waiting to be painted. I see these potential paintings as textures -wood, cups, whistles, breaths, roarings – that sometimes I consider the final composition, while other times I rather use them as a base of a work. It’s quite interesting to explore both perspectives.

Facing a possible silent eternity, sometimes I sit down and paint:

.

Sometimes I just want some silence.

Calm

“There is an hour just at evening when the plains seem on the verge of saying something; they never do, or perhaps they do-eternally-though we don’t understand it, or perhaps we do understand but what they say is as unstranslatable as music…”
Jorge Luis Borges, Fictions

La calma.mp3 is part of acantilado

I.- Ir quitando, poco a poco, la estructura a la música para así lograr los paisajes anhelados. Composiciones que demuestren y hagan sentir el proceso de creación donde no veamos únicamente el acabado final. El resultado final sería el silencio. II.- Me encontraste, me abandonaste. No quiero verte hoy. No quiero verte más, al menos no olvidado. Soy el que necesita, soy el que quiere, soy el que extraña, soy el que cede, soy el que cela y el que cree, el encontrado, el abandonado. Soy el que se excita, el que te espera, el que olvida, el que reprime, critica y se entristece. Soy el que miente, el que juzga, el que teme. Soy uno, soy nada, el que pretende y alcanza, el que perdona, duda, se ofende y se extraña. Soy el que compone y drena, cierra los ojos y persevera, el que se perturba, se masturba y te sueña. Soy el que evade, no evade, te enfrenta y recapacita, te arropa y mira. Soy el que ama, el que drena, el que se engaña y odia, rechaza y reza. Soy lo malo, soy la tristeza, soy yo, el que piensa y camina. Quiero verte hoy, quiero verte siempre. III.- Persecu_ A veces queremos dejar huellas de nada. IV.- Me he perdido tantas veces… cada vez me cuesta más encontrarme. Entre la noche y cada pisada mía no defino los sonidos. Quizás no pretendo encontrarme. Espero a la mañana para buscar tus respiros. De noche los veo, ya no los espero en mi oido. Mañana vuelvo a casa. Cada vez me cuesta más encontrarme.

Diego, the moon & the sea

…to Diego who cruises the sea 

Diego, the moon & the sea.mp3 (Rough mix)

I woke up today in a weird mood. After getting married at the seashore, wearing exuberant clothes and naked feet I took a deep nonsense sleep. I dreamt a… no, I didn’t dream. In the meantime I met him: philosopher, ascetic and capricious.

Then he told me his story:

Night: He stood for a long time by the sea interested in his doubts and sensations. After numerous slow minutes he began to be unnoticed. Knowing or not that he had been ignored he decided to swim under the sun.

Diego, the sea: Every star has a sound, wrinkled and prudent is a color, at least a tone of some pair. While they grow and bounce on the water they wait and stay preserved with joy. When the sun falls they appear afloat.

Moon: One stroke, two strokes… three strokes, four strokes… He was hope and illussion. Every immersion became eternal; every immersion was reflection and rest.

The dream: A wave is a phrase, a message that intimidates and disappears, then attracts and resigns, until I become sea it rise me and makes me feel sleepy

The ship: Fifteen strokes, sixteen strokes… almost dancing he deepens without stop. He was always anxious and happy, eager to find more road. Knowing or not that he had been watched the night began to grow.

The shore: Hum! Ah! Hum! Ah! A big ship was rowing. The illussion ignored the fatigue, the moon was lightning and making day behind the oars. The tide revealed and concealed, revealed and concealed, revealed and concealed… revealed and concealed… revealed and concealed… revealed and concealed…

The End: He fell in a deep sleep and then became night, moon and life. Years passed by and he found love, he took it with naked feet and exuberant clothes to the seashore and celebrated the ceremony that now bind them.

He rested all night… The next day he found a kid that would tell him his story.

The Theme

“Diego, the moon & the sea” is part of La Uña, El Martillo y Los Pensamientos Imposibles (2009)
Writen & recorded by Xavier Losada

Picture: Hugo Losada
Paint “Diego, la luna y el mar”: Andrea Ces

Persecu_

“…I think of his music as a remembrance of a state to which every human being, at his prime, wishes to return, and within the same feeling of deprivation, the dark conscience of something now missing and once owned should be hidden away”.
August Strindberg, Inferno

.

Persecu_.mp3

The Music

In 1993 I listened to Astor Piazzolla for the first time. It was like any other day of my teenage years: At Luis Fernando’s, guitar, Ice Tea, cigarettes & lot of talk. I remember taking a few Leonel Persecuta among them. We said something about opera – we weren’t at the disposition to listen to it at the moment – and walked back to the room. Two guys, age 14, a year from the death of this unknown man and 16 years on from that recording discover something that will change their lives without even knowing. For many years that followed “El Troesma” played songs like “Cité Tango”, “Pia-sol-la-sol” and “Persecuta” always enlightening and teaching me. Later on I stumbled onto Tango: Zero Hour, La Camorra as well as the need to listen to his music for the first time.

Ten years on from that late adolescent afternoon, as I began to write Escritorio, I began to listen to that recording and decided to make it part of my new reality; from my day to day to any old afternoon.

The Story

Inspired in an imaginary Silent Film Festival with live music and in the complaints I received for my handwriting over the years:

“They began to roll the film only after they made us read what was to happen. There seems to be certain rules; I believe that one of them demands that the text be written in letters legible by all. They would face a problem when an illiterate person takes part.

The text narrated the story of an anonymous who was walking on an odd day of the month. It described the psychological persecution of “anonymous” after he passed through the glance of another unknown.

The film is affected by the audiences knowledge of the story; The film’s singular purpose is to heighten tensions, deepen emotions.

They began to roll the film only after they made us read what was to happen. The last time I went this month (apparently it’s become habit) I closed my eyes during the music. I couldn’t see a single image, strangely, I am always walking with fear of turning around, fear of knowing that it is chasing me, fear of running, of opening my eyes and not understanding, not knowing what it was all about.

I never learnt to read.”

The Theme

Persecu_ is part of Escritorio

.

Today I found Piazzolla as one of the greatest composers of the 20th century.

No Ego – Triad

“…Amazingly,
I am too the memory of a sword,
and of a solitary, falling sun,
turning itself to gold, then gray, then nothing.
I am the one who sees the approaching ships
from harbor. And I am the dwindled books,
the rare engravings worn away by time…”
Jorge Luis Borges, I

The Evolution*
- click each image to listen -

Demo 1.mp3

Demo 2.mp3

Demo 3.mp3

Demo 4.mp3

No Ego.mp3

*Images by Daz Medrano

The Theme

No Ego was written by Xavier Losada & Daz Medrano
from the album Blood + Karma by Triad

Produced by Xavier Losada
Engineered and Mixed by Ricardo Martínez
Assistant Engineer: Gabriel Álvarez
Recorded & mixed at Remoto Estudio – Caracas, Venezuela
Mastered at Precision Mastering by Tom Baker

David Marcano + Drums
Daniel “New” Pirone + Bass
Daz Medrano + Guitar & Voices