Paul Bradley Memorias Extranjeras CD (A23)

An unbelieveably great, new work from Paul Bradley, one of the new UK masters of drone music. With 'Memorias extranjeras', Paul works with very festive field recordings from Valencia, Spain. We hear the smooth, complex drone sounds which are his signature along with field recordings which he uses in ways which are perhaps not 'typical' of his work. The single 41 minute piece actually sounds like two separate but related pieces, each with its own mood. This work strikes a perfect balance between darkness and light, somberness and celebration. The music will satisfy the familiar while also introducing Paul's work to an entirely new fan base with its excellent use of rhythm and other elements which are best left heard rather than described.



A note from Paul:

Más que un simple documental, 'Memorias Extranjeras' es un brumoso sueño de posibilidades. La excitación y el miedo de lo desconocido donde tardes empapadas de sol se desdibujan en noches que sangran hacia el interior de nuevos amaneceres que nunca cesan.



Paul has some sound samples up here.

You can view a photo essay related to this work here.

All photos on this page by Paul Bradley.





REVIEWS



Vital Weekly 523 (April 2006, Frans de Waard, Nederland)

On the back-cover of the new Paul Bradley CD, we see a tourist picture: people standing in a sunny street and when we read that this was recorded in Valencia
and Gandia, both in Spain, we may know that this picture is made while recording the field recordings used. At the basis of all Paul Bradley music is the field
recording. After that Bradley manipulates the material until is a stretched out piece of drone music and the original source recordings have disappeared. That's
why in the early days we thought it was a bunch of synthesizers. However for 'Memories Extranjeras' he has these recordings made in Spain, and he by and
large does the thing he always does best but there is a slight difference. The original field recordings are here and there to be heard: at one point the rhythms of a marching band arrive out of a mass of sound and sounded like an odd counterpoint in this music. On other spots we hear the crowd cheering or talking in a reverbing hallway. This 'revealing' of sources is a quite nice new feature in this music. It doesn't add a whole new perspective, nor does it break the good flow in this work, but at the same time, you feel that Bradley is slowly shifting interest towards new paths. I wouldn't
be surprised if he switches over one day and reduces the electronic processing in favor of the pure field recording. But that's all for later. For now, Bradley
added another fine work of drone music to his already nice discography.



Touching Extremes May 2006 (Massimo Ricci, Italia)

An interesting change of direction from Bradley, whose drifting drones find here a counterpoint in a series of field recordings he made in Spain. The sounds were mostly captured during a street celebration by the community of Valencia; we experience a compelling mix of transcendental and concrete, where the association between the composer's helical glissandos and hard-hitting inspections of the low-frequency domain with voices from the road, rhythmic slogans corroborated by drums and police sirens howling in the background becomes at times very involving from an emotional standpoint. Bradley's bravura resides in his capability of finding a way for the reality to hide in a niche of unconscious memory, so that one feels like having participated to the event without actually having been there. The contrast between the oneiric submersion and the edgy involuntary orchestration generated by the human element works extremely well throughout the album, establishing a sensation of whispered intrigue that highlights this artist's soundscaping cleverness.



GAZ-ETA Number 43, May 2006 (Tom Sekowski, Poland)

Paul Bradley who runs the Twenty Hertz label/collective is a busy guy. Recent releases have been abundant on his own label. His latest project "Memorias extranjeras" is a field recording based on a festival in Valencia, Spain that was in turn morphed into a 40 minute drone recording. Glimpses of festival are in fact few, which is a bit of a shame, but this was never the purpose of the record. Rather, Bradley wanted to take source recordings and simply use them as a starting point for the drone-fest that follows. Sure, we have minute glimpses of fireworks exploding, people cheering and clapping, crowd noise and what sounds like real life explosions of some type but that's not the core of the record. The feast occurs in the flow of the mid-bass drone that follows the piece from beginning to end. Fairly steady, slow to mid-tempo drone is actually pleasant to the ears. Mid- way through the record, drone changes to a guitar-like sound that may have been recorded inside of a large, empty cathedral. Not sure how to describe the drones here, other than to say that they're reminiscent of a semi- metallic spiral at one point, while in a different point, they're more like a hollowed-out, ominous call of doom. Perfectly paced and realized with a lot of afterthought and balance, this is one record that allows the mixture of field recordings and drones to flow freely.



Tokafi, August 2006 (Tobias Fischer, Netherlands)

Bang! Just when you thought you had settled in, your senses are warped into a state of emergency, there is a sudden rush of blood to the head, your heart starts beating furiously and you can feel your pulse in your jugular. For all those, who thought they knew Paul Bradley and had come to expect yet another work of deep, brooding, meditative and transcendentally comforting drones, the time has come to think again.



Not, because there are none of those on this album. But instead of the undisrupted flow and smooth transitions of previous efforts, “Memorias Extranjeras” presents the listener with a colourful collection of snap shots, each one with a different mood and intensity. Of course, the old Bradley is still very much present in many of the seperate episodes, especially when he operates in the lower regions of the sonic spectrum and treats the listener to physically powerful, subcutaneous layers of bass vibrations, which set both mind and body in motion. There are plenty of those here, but on top of that, there are also sweeling and decongesting harmonics, almost indian flavoured passages reminscent of a long-drawn sitar tone, field recordings of people talking and of foreworks being ignited, as well as (a real premiere in Bradley’s oeuvre!) rhythms. The latter light up the aural scenery at the very beginning, covering the fanned-out opening drone, only to disappear again in an instant of a second. Like a ghostly galley ship on an endless ocean, the 40-minute long composition sails through banks of mist, allowing only a faint glimps of what is to come and merely a distant memory of the past. The cooling spray touches your face and the wind caresses your hair like an invisible hand, as you gaze at what’s in front of you. And all around you, on a grey, but everlasting horizon, a wordless world slowly unfolds.



And then, just when you thought you had settled in, brutal noises set in and a frenzy of distorted voices and explosions shakes you up and brings your body back to the real world. There are more of these surprising moments on “Memorias Extranjeras” and they keep the mind in a transient state between waking alertly and sleeping peacefully. After a string of almost perfect drone releases, this is a step into a new direction for Paul Bradley. A most welcome one, as we might add.