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Runtime: 49'26''

«We continue our travel through the wonders of electro-acoustics with another american, but this time it's a south-american. Please welcome Juan José from the capital of the Tango, Buenos Aires.
'Plano Vertical', consisting of only two long pieces - 'Extensión Activa' and 'Plano Vertical 2' - is a fifty minute journey along a misterious dark corridor, with highly textured sound halls along the way, which appear and disappear under various element-like palettes, like earth, water, fire, wind and others. There are also some sections where we can hear some kind of machinery working around us, feeling like some kind of an obscure sci-fi soundtrack. We can also hear layers of electricity, human steps and voices, boxes and stones falling around, thermal generators, steam engines and a plethora of real-world (maybe out-of-this-world too) noises.
'Plano Vertical' is an amazing electro-acoustics album, worked to prefection and offering us a intense ride all the way to the end. Sounds even better with good circumaural headphones. Not to be missed.» - Pedro Leitão


Downloads:

01 • Extensión Activa ..................................................................... pt us
  [31'10'' • 54,2Mb • VBR]
02 • Plano Vertical 2 ...................................................................... pt us
  [18'16'' • 30,2Mb • VBR]
  • artwork ................................................................................... pt us
  [PDF-Zip • 3,28Mb]    
  • all tracks + artwork ................................................................ pt us
  [Zip • 87,5Mb]    

Reviews:

«Sound has become the new visual approach to address our surroundings, more than ever before artists are using sound as the best way to suggest sound making sculptures, sound making paintings, sound making installations. Juan José Calarco from Argentina is one of the leading figures of the sound art / electro-acoustic movement in Latin America, and Plano Vertical is a project that gives us a clean, fair and substantial representation of sound as a visual and spacial reference.
The word record or album in electro-acoustic music seems somehow vague, Plano Vertical, for example, is almost a cinematographic or an exploratory acoustic element, where sounds feed our sonic and visual senses with hints of the experience that we are going through.
Plano Vertical is the familiarization with an event (call it an object, call it a place) that is also establishing an incidental relationship with us, like the roots of a tree growing in weird shapes in a dirt full of stones.
We are there, somewhere close to this "thing" that we can hear and that "thing" is aware of us but probably in an subconscious way.
Listening to music as sitting in a comfy chair or a comfy sofa, in the dark, preferably alone seems now like an old fashioned commodity. That is the way Classic music is heard, or at least that is the way most Classic music fans hear it.
Plano Vertical anyway seems like the perfect "record" to do it. It's like starting a travel to a place where blindly you will witness events you wouldn't recognize, objects you wouldn't visualize and right there in the middle of them is you, who you barely would locate.
The textures, the motion and the structure of time in this piece is impeccable, subtle and strong. If Andrei Tarkowski or Stanley Kubrick were alive today, I am sure they will fairly treasure this project like the landmark it is of the rapidly growing movement of sound artists in Latin America.»
- David Velez [EARLabs] / October 15, 2007

«Juan José Calarco´s "Plano Vertical" is an amazing travel through the city lost sounds, the echoes of several elements taked from a unique and sensitive perspective, an exploration of the beating heart of a big-mysterious city like Buenos Aires, and a really "ear opener" for those wo want to listen instead of just hear. These two pieces (Plano Vertical 2, Extensión Activa) show us the beauty we can find behind the veil of the daily city sounds. An excellent work in contrast variations and textures. Don't miss it.»
- Nicolas Himler [EARLAbs] / September 10, 2007

«Ever downloaded a hefty video to find only the audio portion functions properly? Then the frustration inherent in following the two-part recording Plano Vertical, by musician Juan José Calarco, will provoke some serious déjà vu — and some pleasure.
The major difference, of course, is that Calarco’s imposing disorientation is entirely willful on his part, whereas the former experience has to do with the niggling complexities of the technology ingrained in our daily lives.
Which is to say, perhaps both experiences aren’t so different after all. The two tracks on Plano Vertical are built from familiar sounds, including rusty gears, telescoping echo, industrial groans, auracular rings, surface noise, the vertiginous rumble of what could be an elevator shaft, the distant cacophony of what could be a plane coming in to land, the clack of equipment functioning…
In other words, Calarco has taken mechanistic noises inherent in daily life and built something sad and worn and scary and often beautiful out of them. On the two pieces, “Extension Activa” (MP3) and “Plano Vertical 2″ (MP3), most of this sound is yanked from its original context, which makes the occasional water drip stand out like a photorealist painting at an abstract expressionist exhibit.»
- Marc Weidenbaum [Disquiet] / August 27, 2007

«Juan José Calarco emerges as one of the most intriguing artists in South America. Test Tube seems to be a relevant space for the avant-garde and experimental end of electronic and electro-acoustic works. Plano Vertical is a tremendous display of narrative, mystery and abstraction.»
- FGMCVP [EARLabs] / August 24, 2007

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Copyleft:

cover:
©2007 Azul Fernández
©2007 aeriola::behaviour
music:
©2006 Juan José Calarco
©2007 test tube


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