A. Maiah - F(r)icciones

Hegoa Diskak continues to dig out the unexpected from the Basque Country's rich heritage, now turning their attention to a dichotomous selection of tracks that in part provide the experimental soundtrack to the film Durangas, a documentary about the female experience and the civil war in the town of Durango, and also a 'non-musical accompaniment to an imaginary movie'. That final part has confused me, too, so i'll just concentrate on what i can decipher. F(r)icciones appears less a coherent presentation than a collection of inter-related works, mostly driven by an interest in droning, frayed blues and foreboding electronics, the result generally desolate and heavy-limbed, an infinite sand dune of storm warning and slow-heat. And yet there are obvious outliers too, most notably the six-minute long 18 piece choir of female voices that opens proceedings, a strangely haunting recording that might be ecstatic if it didn't so obviously emit the sense of the meeting of some secret (possibly sinister) society. Things get more racous towards the end, the noise abrasions of Akatu Akatzileak reminding me a little of the recent Michel Henritzi record, while closer Ranchera Rota bears some resemblance to the primitive blues of the Paris Texas OST. Overall it's a baffling collection, it's meaning rooted perhaps only in its creator's mind. Experience tells me it's often such things to which you end up returning most regularly...