justo bagüeste & suso saiz: inducing the pleasure dreams v2

"In 1995 Justo Bagüeste released a record called I.P.D.; it claimed to induce in the listener a pleasant dream, heading for the final sprint towards that collective promise beyond the end of the millennium. I.P.D. was some sort of Goldberg Variations for the turn of the century, played on mini-Moogs, short-wave radios and analog synths. In 2016, Bagüeste and Suso Saiz (producer of I.P.D.) performed at Periferias Festival in Huesca; they were to play a reinterpretation of the recording they had made twenty years before. However, Bagüeste and Saiz didn't appear nostalgic nor revisionist: just a certain atmosphere and a few samples linked the concert to the 1995 recording. Firmly stuck in that moment, they offered a session of sonic haze based on dialog and improvisation -- the 40 minutes of music presented here stem from that haze. Like a vitalist statement, a heartbeat and a human voice open the first track, "Nóstos". One is then plunged into a boundless sea of textures and synthetic serpentines entitled "Margen de Indefinición" (Margin of Vagueness). Soon, some rhythmic turbulence shows up, evoking a dream of "Despertar" (Awakening) between faraway saxophones, glided guitars, reminiscences of Popol Vuh and Tangerine Dream. The final stretch starts in tension, mired in an inner conflict "Cerca de Algún Lugar" (Close To Somewhere). After a shamanic-like voice, the session leads to a backwater of spacious ambient music with stitches of sax and guitar, describing a transcendental "Implosión" (Implosion) ended with unrepentant heartbeats again. This re-reading of I.P.D. is like an agile pirouette against the inertia of time; it reminds one how intimately electronic music has been related to spirituality since the beginning, and how that bond seems to have diluted in the 21st century, in the factual setting of so many utopian fantasies from the past. Bagüeste and Saiz evoke the enthusiasm of the future pasts. They recall that promise of plenitude through technology that never was. At the same time, they update that promise before our ears, naturally and fully aware." --Javier Aquilué Edition of 500.