Roberto Alonso Trillo & Vertixe Sonora Ensemble - Camilo Méndez: Peripheral Spaces (2023) [Official Digital Download 24/96]

The music of Camilo Méndez is a melting pot where a seeming gallimaufry of disparate influences coalesces into harmonious, cohesive works of monumental proportions. It draws inspiration from literature and the visual arts, from geography and philosophy, and from experiences lived on multiple continents. While Méndez’s soundworld has an unquestionable affinity with that of European composers like Helmut Lachenmann and his mentors Pierluigi Billone and Rebecca Saunders, the conceptual underpinning of his works is filled with allusions to composers, writers, and visual artists from his native Latin America, and with subtle references to his own professional pursuits and artistic collaborations in North America and Southeast Asia.

Just as the works meld together myriad influences, they sonically fuse instruments in continually surprising ways, defamiliarizing them through “preparations” and unconventional playing techniques, blurring their boundaries, and combining their sounds to startling and delightful effect. In the music of Méndez, the unexpected is the norm: cellos make noises that are indistinguishable from flutes, pianos are treated as percussion instruments, accordions and saxophones create interchangeable sonorities. Through these improbable transformations and amalgamations of instrumental sound, Méndez converts chamber ensembles into fantastical machines that create otherworldly soundscapes, and whirr rhythmically with the precision of finely tuned mechanisms.

Mendez´s works are conceived as large cycles that explore a compositional idea through multiple pieces, each scored for a different combination of instruments. The macrostructure of each cycle is meticulously conceived, featuring intricate (often symmetrical) arrangements of pieces according to their instrumentation, and sometimes incorporating ingenious devices, such as pieces that can be played simultaneously. Each cycle can be presented as a full-length concert, but the constituent pieces are also self-standing works that can be performed on their own. This album features six excerpts from two cycles—"BURSZTYN" and "Spatio-Temporal Cartographies"—ordered with Méndez’s characteristic penchant for balanced macrostructural forms.

Tracklist:
01. BURSZTYN II: Minimáquina I
02. Cartography of Peripheral Spaces (Interior: II-IV-I-III)
03. BURSZTYN VI: Minimáquina IIIa
04. Cartography of Liminal Spaces (IV-III-I-II)
05. BURSZTYN VII: Flexidra IV (Collide, Splinter, Splatter)
06. Cartography of Peripheral Spaces (Periphery: III-II-IV-I)


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