Detailed Reviews [Las Orejas Y La Lengua - 2002 - "La Imenencia Inobjetable"]

Las Orejas Y La Lengua (Argentine) - 2002 - "La Imenencia Inobjetable"
(44 min, "Viajero Inmovil")

Prologue. "La Imenencia Inobjetable" is the debut album by the Argentinean band Las Orejas Y La Lengua (LOYLL hereafter), though the most part of it was recorded back in 1996. Also, this CD is the second official release by the "Viajero Inmovil" label, which was previously known only as one of South-America's distribution / mail order companies. To read the review of the first CD, released by the label about three months ago, click here.

The Album. Having heard both of the CDs, released by the "Viajero Inmovil" label, I feel that it is becoming a 'southern' counterpart of Mexico's Prog label "Luna Negra", as both of them are oriented to produce the most unique manifestations of contemporary Progressive. When I heard the final notes of this 44-minute album I had the impression that I was listening to it no less than two hours. It's because each of the album's thirteen compositions, all of which, as you can guess, are rather short, is filled with such enormous number of different musical pictures that would be enough for some bands to 'build' a full-length album from. What's central, however, is that the music of LOYLL is incredibly unique (I'd even say that it is not of this world, in some ways) and just cannot be compared to anything existing under a 'musical' sun. Alas, I don't know any otherworldly terms to describe it. Nevertheless, I'll try to do it as much precise as possible, despite the fact that briefly, the band's stylistics can be defined only roughly. In my view, it's about a very unusual and eclectic blend of Symphonic Art-Rock and Avant-garde with lots of the elements that are typical for both of the kinds of Academic Music, Classical and Avant-garde. Certainly, in other words, LOYLL is a band of Progressive's Fifth Element. (To learn more about this genre, click here). While overall, "La Imenencia Inobjetable" is the album of a unified stylistic concept, the pieces that are bunched up in the first half of it are slightly different from those in the second half. There are more of the avant-garde shades than symphonic ones in the compositional canvas of each of the first six compositions on the album, and vice versa in those of each of the remaining seven pieces. However, the eclecticism, the continuous use of complex time signatures, atonalities, kaleidoscopic changes of themes and tempos, and contrasting interplay between solos of electric and bass guitars, organ, flute, and piano are typical for the album as a whole. The drumming is complex and diverse, throughout the album as well. Both of the album's shortest tracks, $5.000 de F. Kropfl and Anzuelo para Fennano (5 & 8), consisting only of effects and a few of the reversed solos, aren't separable from the forthcoming pieces. So each of them can be regarded as an intro to Saltar y brincar (6) and Ignacio (9) respectively. There are three compositions on the album that contain the features that aren't present on any of the other tracks. Anzuelo para Fennano (2) is the only song here. It features two episodes where a wonderful mixed choir sings without any instrumental accompaniment. What's especially amazing is that the parts of this choir sound often as avant-garde, unusual, and unpredictable as most of the instrumental arrangements on the album, especially those that are present on the first half of it. While generally, Fugaz en la Ciudad Antigua (4) is in the vein of the band's chosen style, this is the only composition on the album that was performed without drums and where passages and solos of acoustic guitar play a prominent role. Various interplay between passages of acoustic guitar and piano and solos of flute, bass guitar, and synthesizer are here of the same eclectically symphonic character that is typical for the album as a whole. Also, it needs to be said that on "La Imenencia Inobjetable", there are too little of the moods familiar to the 'classic' Prog-lovers. As an example, the musical shades of this album are as far from a typical specter of emotions, consisting of dark, light, sad, joyful, etc shades, as the creation of Bach and Mussorgsky from that of Schoenberg and Schnitke. Similar differences can be found between a traditional, Euclid's, cone and that of Lobatchevsky. Music is just as infinite as the universe and an approaching towards an absolute zero (or a complete simplification of music) will be as endless as that towards the endlessness itself (or music that is boundlessly complex).

Summary. All the profound, adventurous, and open-minded Prog-lovers, including those from the RIO camp (I did never regard you as "RIO-freaks"), you are and will always be welcome in such wonderful musical worlds as that of LOYLL and the other bands of Fifth Element - the genre, which is the most distant from any commercial ways. As well as in the case of RIO, the atmosphere of Fifth Element is unfit for music stars to breathe in. It's just for those who know that a real creation is over gold.

VM. July 8, 2002