CARME LÓPEZ

Female artists have been central to the evolution of drone and minimalist music from Pauline Oliveros and her pioneering of deep listening, Eliane Radigue, Laurie Spiegel through to current practitioners such as Suzanne Ciani, Sarah Davachi and Kali Malone. It is from this stable of great female artists that Spanish composer Carme López has sprung – bringing to the table her own unique brand of music centered on the Galician bagpipe; fitting given that she is also a researcher of the traditional oral music of Galicia. But López takes her musical adventures to a different level, expanding elements of sound to create ambient and experimental soundscapes while pushing the limit of her chosen instrument and extracting a deep and rich sonic experience all within a minimalist avant-garde framework. It is exactly this aesthetic that we find on her debut album Quintela.

Perhaps AOB should be given solely over to bagpipes and hurdy gurdys. I cant get through a month without another experimental take on these instruments passing unnoticed. Carme López’s Quintela on Warm Winters was mentioned on The Quietus already but I love it too. It’s a narrative suite for Galician bagpipe (I was already sold at Galician bagpipes) that takes cues from López’s research into traditional oral music from Galicia (I’ll take two!) but also from Oliveros and other hefty minimalist composers (I’ll take it all). The ‘Epilogue’ is the highlight, setting up a reedy canon-like pattern and weaving motifs like basketry.

The centerpiece of the album consists of two long drones that are inspired more by ambient music than Galician folk. López plays pure tones that slowly transform and evolve, deploying the bagpipe’s ability to wander across microtonal ranges to create dense layers of sound. She avoids the bagpipe’s brash, piercing upper registers in favor of a subdued, contemplative hum. At times these tracks sound like a church organ and at others a modular synth; play them for a friend and they will never guess their actual origins.