FIBLA

lent

CD/LP, spa.RK

Almost Buddhist in effect, Fibla’s new album spreads sunshine, warmth and grace via gentle and subtle beats awashed with beautiful and spacious synthie-sounds. The album builds up to a rhythmic highpoint in its middle and then slowly degrades again into the Azorean ocean of ease and sounds it started off from. “lent” is proof that it is possible to but emotion and heart into electronic music. This record shimmers, shines and soothes.

It is hard to make out differences nowadays. At times I think there are new labels and records popping up everywhere, who are mainly interested in producing interesting logos and writing their names in various forms of interpunctuation and small and big letters. (Maybe I should try crack.ED or something? Nah…) Especially in relation to electronic music, there might be just as much labels and artists as there are people actually listening to all the music being released. Well, this could be a good sign as well, the listener emancipating himself into being an artist, the production-tools in the hands of the consumers, no more difference between consumers and producers, and here we are again, where we started off: it is hard to make a difference nowadays. Who does what and why? For some years the techno-scene was proud that the producers lived in absolute anonymity, but nowadays the star-system has full reach in each and every aspect of this genre as well. The revolution devours its children, just like history has taught us it will. Which records are of importance and why? I will give you the same answer, I have always to this question: Whatever music strikes your heart and / or mind makes a difference. During times as complex and difficult as ours the only way to keep a clear head and to not lose orientation is to rely completely on your personal experience and network. And if you can’t trust the, who can you trust?

“an incredible shared moment” is not only what makes some music so special to the listener at certain times in very individual circumstances, it is also the title of the last track on the second album by Fibla (not counting the collaboration with video artist Carles Congo) and his first on his very own record label. And “an incredible shared moment” is what you will get from the warmest, friendliest, most heart-reaching electronic album I have heard in the last months. Fibla still uses subtle electronic beats, close to actual clicks’n’cuts but not quite, that build up into complex patterns that produce various straight rhythms at once. Did anyone say Autechre on tranquillisers? Well, that is not all there is. Because these fundaments are awashed with warm, liquid atmospheres and synthie-sounds that flow like dolphins in video games. Maybe it is just a culturally learned trigger to associate these sounds with absolute freedom, elegance and beauty but there we go, if it spells grace then it most assuredly is graceful. And it is, right down to the distorted vocalised keyboards and undercurrent noise-patterns.

Titles of tracks are the only means of most electronic artists to produce a simply understood message and Fibla uses that tool with ease and peace. Track five is called “boringly repetitive” and might be targeted at music critics who are still waiting for that great guitar-riff to sprout up in electronic music. But who likes music-journalists anyway? Moreover, this is the track with the most distinctive drum-pattern. “One small town” could be a hint at Fiblas hometown, Barcelona, but remember that this is the place of the annual Sonar-festival, where Fibla himself has played before. Apart from these, the music itself is the message and it can not be spelled in words and sentences. But you will feel it as soon as the record starts to play: there is no better place than a sunny bench to sit on. There is no better time than right here and now if you are able to drowse in your own dreams and thoughts. There is no better life than this, if you are able to forget all your desires and needs. Utopian? Maybe, but that is what makes the difference.

www.sparkreleases.com

09/2003