Cosmos

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Fernando Corona’s long-awaited third album as Murcof marks a dramatic departure from previous works. Truly monumental in scale, Cosmos is composed almost entirely of recordings of classical instruments, a process which Corona describes as “expanding the possibilities of acoustic instruments through electronics.” It’s a move away from the micro-programmed sound he helped to pioneer, and his seamless integration of these apparently opposed forms is almost unprecedented.

These new recordings were inspired by a very simple motion, the act of tilting the head towards the skies, or as Corona puts it: “Cosmos basically comes from that state of wonder and mystery and joy and humbling that you get when you let your mind wander freely on a starry night, away from the contamination of city lights. From the realization that there's an infinite universe outside the man-made world and how silly this latter one seems in comparison.”

Originally intended as an EP, the early Cosmos tracks were so mesmerizing that those around Corona encouraged him to make it a full-length. His past approach involved mixing disembodied orchestral passages amidst microbeats, letting a song shift and mutate in a minimal environment. With Cosmos, he has progressed towards a more sophisticated compositional mode. The immensity of tracks like the monolithic twins ‘Cosmos I’ and ‘Cosmos II’ draw to mind the work of the German electronic pioneers of the ‘70s or the Hungarian composer György Ligeti as much as the visceral, low-end rumblings of SunnO))) or Coil. Murcof’s compositions have always been as much about the absence of sound as what you actually hear, and these techniques are further refined here.

“This album took me one and a half years to finish,” the quietly-spoken Corona says. “I like to leave the tracks there to stand the test of time before I put them out, and I generally don't like rushed jobs.” Corona’s care and precision is very evident on Cosmos, a brilliant, powerful recording that charts his musical destinations completely off the map.