FRANCISCO LOPEZ with Valentina Lacmanović - With/In . CD

Francisco López is internationally recognized as one of the major figures of the sound art and experimental music scene. For more than thirty years he has developed an astonishing sonic universe, absolutely personal and iconoclastic, based on a profound listening of the world. Destroying boundaries between industrial sounds and wilderness sound environments, shifting with passion from the limits of perception to the most dreadful abyss of sonic power, proposing a blind, profound and transcendental listening, freed from the imperatives of knowledge and open to sensory and spiritual expansion. He has realized hundreds of concerts, projects with field recordings, workshops and sound installations in over sixty countries of the five continents. His extensive catalog of sound pieces (with live and studio collaborations with over 150 international artists) has been released by more than 300 record labels worldwide. He has been awarded four times with honorary mentions at the competition of Ars Electronica Festival and is the recipient of the Qwartz Award 2010 for best sound anthology. Since 1999 Valentina Lacmanović has researched dances from different cultures through their ritual, folk, classic, and contemporary aspects. From 2001 onwards, her work has been focused on the creation of dance-theater and multimedia performances where Eastern and Western worlds meet. She has worked intensively on creating performances inspired by dances of trance and collaborates with artists from various disciplines. Profound research into dances of trance and ritual versus performing spaces since 2003 gave new direction to her work as an art director and performer. Her investigations into whirling dance led to insights into its origins and practice extending beyond Sufi meditation that supply an inexhaustible source of artistic inspiration and contemporary creativity, ultimately resulting in the project Shedervish, which marked an important change in her artistic development. “With/In” features one long track created by Francisco López with original sound matter recorded from body, clothes and immediate surrounding space during ritual whirling by Valentina Lacmanović. As subtle as the almost invisible image that appears on the back cover, this work translate the dancer’s breath and movements into music. One of the most interesting concepts in López later works and surely one of the best entries in his ever-growing discography.