Shop - Lucius Work Here – El Espiritu de los Tiempos (FAITH024)

Descripción

«El Espíritu de los Tiempos» is the new and fourth album by Lucius Works Here, name under which we find Shak Benavides, great connoisseur of the history of popular and avant-garde music and soul of Teslafm.net, one of the best known music diffusion platforms in Barcelona.

In «The Spirit of the Times» or «Zeitgeist», translation in German, we find an A-side composed by a single piece of 23 minutes in which we can differentiate three indivisible parts. The introduction is based on the concatenation of ambient and dissonant sounds that little by little are spun until they become complementary and give way to the development (second part). It is here where Shak Benavides recreates through the sonority of the neighing of horses, or his own steps on the stone cobblestones, the romantic spirit of the 19th century. The bass line and the dub rhythm that sustains this central part of the piece fades away and gives way to a more serious and charged with atmospheres, the denouement. This side A, which bears the same name as the album, tries to represent the romantic «spirit» of the 19th century, the socio-economic environment prevailing for that particular historical period.

Side B contains 7 pieces well differentiated from each other and starting with «The birth of tragedy», title of the first track of this Side B, a work inspired by F. Nietzsche and «The birth of tragedy from the spirit of music», the musical piece is a sound representation of the duality of two opposing but complementary forces that govern art: the Dionysian force and the Apollonian force.

«Amour des Tigres» is inspired by the platonic love relationship between Arthur Rimbaud and Paul Verlaine (1871-1875). The piece contains at its beginning the first line read from the poem «A moi. L’histoire d’une de mes follies…. » by A. Rimbaud, and at the end, the last phrase of the poem «Il pleure dans mon coeur…» by P. Verlaine, opening and closing a piece where dissonance and strings stand out. The third cut of Side B, «Incendio en el corazón», is a much more rhythmic, percussive piece, with a post-punk and rebellious electronic touch.

«Frank Embree, number 4» contains a phonograph cylinder recording from 1899, which tells of the case of Frank Embree (1880 – Fayette, July 22, 1899). The composition is nourished by the notes of a piano, the thread of the track that, as it progresses, fills with darkness, the sonorous image of that sinister case referred to lines before. «The deep secret night of the world», Lucius Works Here imagines and recreates a night in a forest, close to the tracks of a 19th century steam train, while «Darul întunecat» is a particularly dark piece where the bass and the rhythmic predominate. The track begins with Romanian klezmer music.

The album closes with «Perdido en la feria de corazones», a cut where Benavides recreates the atmosphere of an amusement park of the 19th century, being this the perception that the artist has regarding human relationships, but above all regarding sentimental relationships.

Thus, «El Espíritu de los Tiempos» is a moving and personal album, suggestive and experimental, loaded with historical and philosophical references that are the common thread of this sound creation. Benavides uses sound resources in an unusual way to shape songs that oscillate between minimalism and ambient, making his project unique in the current music scene, both nationally and internationally.

Released February 11, 2022.

1. El Espiritu de los Tiempos
2. El Nacimiento de la Tragedia
3. Amour des Tigres
4. Incendio en el Corazón
5. Frank Embree, Number 4
6. La Profunda Noche Secreta del Mundo
7. Darul întunecat
8. Perdido en La Feria de Corazones