Iván Muela is a young Spanish composer based in London, and Unsound is his debut
record. Muela makes neo-classical music. This is faint ambient with some electro bits and some classical
bits. Fans of Johann Johannsen will find much to enjoy here.
Muela mostly plays the piano, although he does add in strings and some electronics.
I the that the real standout track here is the eleven minute Silence. This starts with a nice
drone just slowly growing for 4 minutes until he comes in with a little melody, just some faint keys
tinkling. The song sways along for a bit longer then suddenly inexplicably, drums come in. The drums
are cut and mangled, stuttering and IDMish. This song grows from lovely ambience to a deep rocking
Autechre-like groove. It's a fascinating progression, and i really like what he is doing here.
He uses the IDM beat in Traprock as well. He plays a deep thunking piano riff and layers it
with popping warbling sounds for a nice effect.
On Bitter the electronics make the song eerie. There is a faint staticky beat, droning keys, and
looped voices yelling in the background. The whole song burbles up around a horn riff that simply soars.
This is odd, but very lovely as well.
Some of his more classical pieces work really well too. Unlimned is more strings than piano, a
classical piece of faintly sawing bits sliding against one another. And Carlo is a catchy and fun
piano tune, Muela just having a blast hitting the keys.
But overall he does some pretty interesting stuff. I look forward to see what Muela does next. |
