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Esplendor Geométrico

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Esplendor Geométrico, “40 Años Nos Iluminan” (Geometrik, 2021)

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This is definitely one of the more confounding Esplendor Geométrico releases in recent memory, as it is ostensibly a celebration of the project’s 40th anniversary (the title translates as “40 years illuminate us”), but is also ostensibly all-new material that somehow feels like at least three different bands. There is a logical explanation for that, as the album features several collaborations, some recent compositions, and a number of noisy, pummeling throwbacks to EG’s early years (presumably revisiting that style with the benefit of four decades of illumination). An impressively honest additional explanation can be found in the liner notes, however, as the duo note that neither member makes a living from music, which frees them to “do what they want without even thinking of what their fans and followers expect.” 

As a longtime EG fan, I can confirm that this album was definitely made without any consideration for whether or not I would like it (or whether it even makes complete sense). Then again, anyone who has been releasing great albums for several decades is entitled to celebrate with a go-for-broke, everything-but-the-kitchen-sink epic if they feel like it. It is all perfectly fine by me, but anyone simply searching for a good recent EG album should give this one a wide berth and head towards Cinética  instead (also from 2020). That said, there are definitely plenty of bludgeoning percussion assaults here that fans of the project’s noisier side will enjoy (as long as they do not mind sifting through an unusually prickly, blunt, eclectic, and overwhelming batch of songs).

For better or worse, Arturo Lanz and Saverio Evangelista definitely did not exert themselves coming up with anything beyond just beats and textures for this album. Given EG’s considerable prowess in those regards, however, that is hardly a deal-breaker and may even be considered an “all killer, no filler” back-to-basics treat (depending on one’s perspective and appreciation for well-executed brutality). In theory, all the best pieces should be on the first disc since the second one is composed of pieces omitted from the vinyl. In reality, however, there are gems scattered fairly liberally across both halves. 

On the main album, there are a few enjoyable collaborations and a number of EG’s standard bulldozing rhythmic juggernauts, but there are some real surprises too. The biggest one is probably the psychotropic sound collage “Buenos Días,” which sounds like loops of machine noise jamming with ducks, bullfrogs, and a language tape, but my notes for other songs are filled with phrases like “a herd of cows and a bad metal guitarist just crashed band practice,” “Muslimgauze with the intensity dialed up too high,” “wrong-speed party anthem,” or “a churning, unstoppable industrial groove just rolled through a playground and crashed into an arcade.” That last piece (“Vuelve A Jugar”) is one of the album’s best, though I also enjoyed “MokBa” quite a bit (massive primitive robots transform a political march into a delightfully lurching dance party). 

Weirdly, the second disk probably has the better hit-to-miss ratio and the wildest twists. For example, “Avanti” sounds like NWW went completely feral while recording “Rock ‘n Roll Station,” while “Hungry” resembles a power electronics guy and a black metal band collaborating on an absolutely scorching drone album. Elsewhere, “Trans” evokes a heaving half-gelatinous/half-mechanized horror, while “Tribuna Del Trabajo” sounds like an weirdly sensual and industrial-damaged festival parade shimmying its way through a vintage arcade. Admittedly, trying to listen to the entire album in one sitting makes me feel a bit psychologically mauled, frazzled, and exhausted, but there are quite a few songs here that make their impact deeply felt when experienced by themselves. If anybody ever asked me which album I would absolutely want on my side in a brawl, it would most likely be this one.

Samples can be found here.

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Esplendor Geométrico, “Cinética” (Geometrik, 2020)

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I am not sure which is more remarkable: the fact that these iconic industrialists are currently celebrating their 40th anniversary or the fact that they somehow seem to be getting even better in recent years. Aside from Legendary Pink Dots or Swans, I am hard-pressed to think of any other band that has had such an impressive renaissance after their supposed heyday and this particular case is all the more remarkable since Arturo Lanz has remained so single-mindedly focused on pursuing the same narrow stylistic niche all along. Given that consistency, it is no surprise that Cinética is yet another feast of pummeling industrial-strength percussion loops featuring a yet another handful of alternately propulsive and crushing highlights. However, I was surprised at how this latest batch of rhythmic assaults occasionally transcends the duo’s “industrial dance” aesthetic to approach a sort of trance-inducing strain of heavy psych.

One of the more fascinating aspects of Esplendor Geométrico’s oeuvre-and the likeliest key to the project’s longevity-is how Arturo Lanz has managed to make beat-driven music for so many years while nimbly avoiding just about every single possible trend in underground dance music. Instead, he has stayed relevant by remaining a perpetual outsider, often drawing his inspiration from cultures far outside the cutting-edge dance milieu.While the backbone of the project has long been Lanz’s unwavering devotion to the relentless, machine-like repetition of rhythmic loops, he has proven himself to be remarkably resourceful in finding new ways to keep that rigid formula fresh and has never stopped evolving in his own subtle way.

The most obvious example of his eclectic approach to innovation was the incorporation of Arabic rhythms on 1991’s Sheikh Aljama because that was the theme for an entire album, but an alert listener would have no trouble at all finding nods to sundry other cultures strewn throughout EG’s many releases. I would be curious to know how much of that is deliberate and how much is simply absorbed by cultural osmosis, as Lanz has stated that he does not actually listen much outside music beyond “the classics from his youth.” 

He does seem like an especially well-traveled guy though, so it is not hard to believe that he simply moves through life picking up new ideas from the sounds around him like a tirelessly innovative post-industrial sponge. I am especially fond of the more Latin-sounding strains that have found their way into EG’s grooves over the years, though there are lamentably no overt nods to Cuba, Colombia, or Brazil this time around. Then again, maybe there are, as both the shuffling and clattering “Friccion” and the manic, skittering “Acoplamiento internacional” seem to have traditional roots that elude me as a non-ethnomusicologist.

More frequently, however, the beats are either fairly straightforward, punishingly industrial, or ambitiously alien. All are equally likely to be great, as both the tempo and the accompanying hallucinatory maelstrom of distorted voices and machine noise tend to play key roles in whether or not a piece catches fire to become something more than just a cool rhythm. For example, the opening “Construcción transformadora” is essentially built from little more than a relentlessly bulldozing and bass-heavy rumble and some distorted guitar chords, but it works beautifully because it is augmented with eerie submerged voices and ping-ponging percussion flourishes. 

Similarly, “Regulación percusiva” is propelled by a fairly textbook (if overcaffeinated) breakbeat, yet its streaking trails of chirping electronics and swirl of chopped and manipulated voices makes it an unexpectedly absorbing tour de force. The aforementioned “Friccion” is one of the more leftfield delights, as it evokes either a clanking, lurching conga line of robots or a massive mechanical caterpillar. Despite that, it somehow manages to be one of the most improbably soulful and hooky songs on the album due its surreal mélange  of soul diva vocals and pitch-shifted weirdness. Elsewhere, “Modulaciones” comes close to completely stealing the show with its uncharacteristically simmering downtempo groove, calling to mind a half-speed homage to “Funky Drummer” enhanced by drifting, ghostly samples of chanting voices. It is easily one of the most nuanced and sensuous pieces that I have heard from Lanz and Saverio Evangelista and I absolutely love it—I would happily listen to an album-length remix of “Modulaciones” alone.

The same is true of the closing “Inercial,” which is arguably one of the most distilled and perfect examples of EG’s singular vision to date. It is absolutely brilliant in its simplicity, as Lanz and Evangelista take a one second-long beat snippet and loop it into a mercilessly surging and unstoppable juggernaut of seismic abandon. On one hand, it sounds like an out-of-control Carnaval party and a full-scale political riot improbably turned down the same street and merged together, yet the endlessly repeating crunch and throb of the beat almost make me feel like I am sinking into an ecstatic trance-state. 

Between that and “Modulaciones,” Cinética boasts at least two instant classics that make Lanz and Evangelista seem like rhythmic savants on a plane all their own, which is exactly what I have grown to expect from recent EG albums (though those two pieces were still great enough to surprise me anyway). The rest of the album is quite solid as well, however, as there are not any songs that I would describe as either a misfire or too far over-the-top. 

In fact, even the most album’s most indulgent and experimental piece (“Resumen de cantos”) manages to be outré  enough to keep me interested, resembling a time-slowed and stammering rave of the damned. I suppose I could probably do without the avalanche of bonus material appended to the digital version of the album, as an “all killer, no filler” approach is always best, but I cannot fault Lanz and Evangelista for taking a victory lap after putting the finishing touches on such a murders’ row of masterfully crafted and mind-expanding mechanized assaults.

Samples can be found here.

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Esplendor Geométrico, “Fluida Mekaniko” (Geometrik, 2017)

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I can think of few bands that are as cheerfully single-minded in their aesthetic vision as Esplendor Geométrico. In fact, I suspect I could have written a remarkably accurate (if vague) review of Fluida Mekaniko without ever having heard it: lots of visceral and hypnotic percussion loops, no melodic hooks at all, plenty of low-level radio wave and static chaos, and some occasional tuneless and rambling vocals from Saverio Evangelista. Done. 

Characteristically, Fluida Mekaniko DOES provide all of that, but I keep buying Esplendor Geométrico albums because they also tend to feature at least one or two absolutely mesmerizing pieces where everything comes together perfectly and Arturo Lanz seems like a goddamn genius. Fluida Mekaniko continues that tradition beautifully and even finds room to let in a bit more light and nuance than usual. As a result, it is probably one of EG’s strongest and most listenable albums yet.

The opening “Sindroma” is textbook prime Esplendor Geométrico, instantly launching into an obsessive and infectious rhythm that lies somewhere pummeling industrial repetition and shuffling Latin sensuousness. As with just about all EG pieces, the groove is absolutely everything. There is certainly plenty of activity in the periphery (washes of white noise and burbling electronics), but it is mostly there to add density and enough textural variation to keep the propulsive and relentless rhythm dynamically compelling. It is a well-used and very simple formula, but it works extremely well here.

“Sindroma” is also one of the rare pieces on Fluida Mekaniko to prominently feature vocals. Describing Evangelista’s vocals as “spoken” or “shouted” does not quite hit the mark, as they have a distracted-sounding and somewhat arbitrary element that makes me feel like I am overhearing half of a cell phone argument in Spanish. Curiously, that does not detract from the piece at all, as the groove is absolutely everything. The vocals are simply one more thing that happens to be occurring. 

As much as I like “Sindroma,” however, it is “Kooperativo Centrifugilo” that is the absolute zenith of the album, resembling an unstoppable juggernaut of a mechanized Latin dance party bulldozing through a protest rally: no frills, just pure hypnotic and all-consuming rhythm. Elsewhere, “Todavia Mas” is an arguable dark horse contender for the album’s centerpiece: though it boasts a fairly standard-issue EG groove, the surrounding music is surprisingly harrowing and ambitious, resembling a pitch-shifted fascist rally being dive-bombed by menacing swoops of swirling and flanging electronics. The deep, lurching, relentlessly forward-moving shuffle of “Objektiva” is also quite absorbing, even going so far as to break with tradition by attempting a sort of stuttering left-field hook.

Within the extremely narrow confines of the EG sound, however, Evangelista and Arturo Sanz do sometimes find room to experiment a bit. For example, “Tempa Akso” keeps the percussion at a bubbling background simmer for a bizarre soundscape of gurgling and gargling vocals that sounds like an infernal choir of cicadas or crickets. It is probably not one of the album’s best pieces, but it is an interesting and unexpected detour nonetheless. 

A bit closer to my expectations is “Tenante La Ritmon,” which intriguingly deconstructs EG’s penchant for crushing rhythms into little more than a rolling bass rumble that sounds like a contact mic at the base of a mountain as a distant avalanche approaches. My favorite (and the most endearing) of the anomalies, however, is definitely “Eterno Della Vita,” which (unintentionally?) boasts a repeating loop that makes me think that Lanz and Evangelista are about to grab their surfboards and hit the beach. Second prize probably goes to “Mosselprom,” which sounds like the bizarre middle ground where Middle Eastern rave, mass demonstrations, and “hip” action movie soundtracks all improbably come together (picture Jason Statham suavely administering choreographed beatings to everyone who stands in his way at a crowded and churning rooftop party in Abu Dhabi).

Naturally, the issues with Fluida Mekaniko are the same ones that have followed Esplendor Geométrico for most of their career: there is an obvious formula, these pieces are all just rhythmic vamps rather than evolving songs, and melodies or strong hooks are in short supply. To their credit, however, Lanz and Evangelista do not make any attempt to conceal those issues or change at all. Rather, they make a perverse virtue of them. 

I am especially fond of the way Evangelista continually subverts the normal expectations for a vocalist, seemingly viewing himself as someone who merely provides the ambient sounds of a typical day at the giant crushing beat factory. Viewing Esplendor Geométrico as a factory makes perfect sense, actually: they single-mindedly produce one thing and one thing only (viscerally heavy and obsessively repeating rhythms) better than anyone else around, so there is no urgent need to expand their available services anytime soon. 

That said, EG definitely tweaked operations in a significant way this time around, most likely as a result of their recent touring. For example, this album is lot less brooding and ‘industrial’ than its predecessor (Ultraphoon). Also, Lanz and Evangelista seem to have unexpectedly cultivated a lighter touch with their samples—there is still plenty of noise and entropy, but some more poignant snatches of melody and dialogue now manage to sometimes bubble their way up to the surface or peak through the mechanized display of force. Rhythm and power are still king though. Characteristically, it is the more vibrant “global” dance rhythms that work the best and there are only a handful of such pieces, but Fluida Mekaniko‘s other fare is unexpectedly strong and varied enough to keep the momentum going for the entire album.

LIsten here.

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Esplendor Geométrico, “Arispejal Astisaró” (Geometrik, 1992)

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Recently remastered and reissued on their own Geometrik label with radically different cover art and some bonus tracks, this classic 1992 album captures EG in their noisy, rhythmic industrial prime. Like 1991’s Sheikh Aljama before it, Arispejal Astisaró flirts with a superficial Middle Eastern influence, but the real draw is its dense and relentlessly punishing machine rhythms. As with many EG efforts, it is sort of a primitive, hit-or-miss affair that largely lives or dies on the strength of its beats, but its high points are among the most visceral, bracing, and distinctive works of industrial dance music’s brief golden age (and its occasional divergences are even better).

If his albums are any indication, Arturo Lanz does not strike me as a man who is terribly troubled by things like indecision, ambiguity, or nuance. In fact, he often seems more like a machine than a man: a machine that has only an on/off switch (and, at this somewhat early stage of his career, a machine whose settings are all permanently cranked to “10”). 

While that might sound like mere hyperbole, he truly does sound almost inhumanly obsessive and monomaniacal on Arispejal Astisaró. His approach to this album can best be summarized thusly: 1.) devise a compelling rhythm, 2.) execute it with as much brute force as possible, 3.) loop it, and 4.) repeat again and again until there are enough songs for an album. Fortunately, Lanz can be something of a genius within those extremely narrow aesthetic confines, finding many unexpected variations and delivering them all with an appropriate degree of pummeling ferocity.

As stated earlier, the best pieces are almost invariably the ones with the strongest or most inventive rhythms, as Lanz was certainly not concerned with trivialities like hooks, structure, or dynamic variation at this stage in his career. Those rhythms, however, can take some unexpected forms on Arispejal, most notably with the strong opener “Jari,” which sounds like an overloaded contact mic recording of a lawn sprinkler taken during an earthquake. Or a recording from inside a downed helicopter during a Blackhawk Down-style urban firefight. I think I will go with the latter. 

In any case, the most prominent sound is by far the unrelenting sound of the chopper blades (or whatever), but a number of random and mysterious crashes and snatches of garbled voices peak through the stuttering roar to give a menacing and cryptic sense of place. Though Lanz and his collaborator Gabriel Riaza return to similar noisy abstraction again with locked-groove machine noise insanity of the title piece, the rest of the album veers towards significantly more danceable territory.

That certainly does not mean that it would be easy to dance to though. For example, one of the most propulsive pieces ,”Malos Tratos,” is frequently disrupted by blood-curdling shrieks, whereas yet another piece (“Felación“) awkwardly/comically features some cut-up sex moans. Others are simply just too machine-like, such as the punishing and ferocious clatter of “Bi Bajin,” which is also notable for having the most prominent Middle Eastern influence on the album (which is just a chopped and garbled snatch of dialogue).

Another dancefloor-killing trait that several sounds possess is a bizarre randomness: while the underlying beat always remains an unstoppable, unchanging force, some of the peripheral noise and percussion stabs seem purely arbitrary and out of time. I am not sure why that could be, as it otherwise seems like EG is a deeply perfectionist project. Perhaps that perfectionism only extends to beat itself, while the roiling entropy above is left somewhat to chance.

Some of the other pieces are more inventive than over-the-top, however, and their presence is what makes Arispejal such a fascinating effort. In particular, I liked “Rabúa Aromía,” which sounds like a muffled contact mic recording of a telegraph wire during a wind storm. Another stand-out is “Es Inaudito,” which combines an oddly timed clanking metallic rhythm with a surprisingly fluid bass line and snatches of breathy female speech. 

Notably, neither piece is embellished with EG’s characteristic maelstrom of blown-out chaos, which makes them surprisingly listenable (and indicative of the direction to come in the future). Then, on the other side of the spectrum, there is the tense and manic bludgeoning of “Ampuchao,” which nicely evokes the feeling of frantically running away from a pack of drill-wielding maniacs.

Arispejal is rounded out by a couple of very likable pieces that sound like somewhat muted variations on the standard EG formula. “Cataré,” for example, takes a slowed-down Latin rhythm and leaves it fairly unmolested except for a distant electronic hum and some occasional thuds and squelches. The closing “Nu Decotora,” on the other hand, just unleashes a seemingly basic (but unrelenting) rhythm beneath some moaning, sludgy noise and periodic eruptions from what sounds like downed, sparking power lines.

More than any other piece on the album, “Decotora” achieves a hypnotic pulse that remains compelling for its entire duration. As a result, it is deceptively the album’s finest piece, as Arispejal‘s greatest fault tends to be allowing promising ideas to unfold for too long with too little variation: Lanz always does a fine job at grabbing my attention, but does not always manage to hold it. 

While the obvious, immediate appeal of this record primarily lies in its punishing machine crunch and feral oil-drum rhythms, the pieces that offer the most lasting rewards are mostly the ones where Lanz and Riaza allow their omnipresent veil of crushing density to lift a bit. Consequently, I tend to prefer EG’s somewhat more nuanced later work to their work from this “blunt force” period, though I still feel that this is a strong, memorable, and landmark album within EG’s discography.

Listen here.

(Note: the 2014 reissue appends four songs from the 1987 Bruitiste compilation on RRRecords, which date from roughly the same time as these recordings: despite being released in 1992, Arispejal was recorded between 1987 and 1989.)

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Esplendor Geométrico, “Pulsión” (Geometrik, 2009)

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Recently, I have been delving deeper and deeper into Esplendor Geométrico’s discography and it has become increasingly clear to me that their prime never actually ended. Arturo Lanz and his varying bandmates have certainly released some comparatively uneven or tame efforts over the course of their three-decade career, but Lanz has never stopped being a rhythmic genius and can still unleash a crushing masterpiece at any time. One such gem, “Aplicación Insospechada,” comes at the end of this intermittently impressive (and woefully underappreciated) 2009 effort.

While there are some Esplendor Geométrico albums that have a clear, distinctive character that sets them apart from the rest of the Spanish industrialists’ oeuvre, Pulsión is not one of them. That is neither a good nor a bad thing, but it certainly makes it challenging to articulate what makes it special. With few exceptions, nearly every EG album is essentially a collection of incredibly dense, bludgeoning grooves coupled with snatches of dialogue or non-musical chaos.

For this particular effort, those snippets of found audio tend to be extreme right- or left-wing political speeches spanning several different cultures, but they were all chosen for their sound rather than their content. Deeper meaning (along with melody and nuance) is simply beside the point for Lanz and Saverio Evangelista: those are things that humans care about, but EG’s aim to be as immensely and hypnotically inhuman as possible instead. When they succeed at that, they succeed spectacularly. Case in point: the aforementioned “Aplicación Insospechada” sounds like a giant factory suddenly became sentient and synchronized itself into a crunching, mechanized, and absolutely earth-shaking groove.

Of course, while the massive, machine-like beat is certainly the most important part of the EG aesthetic, it is not the only part. Pulsión’s finest moments occur when there is a strong synergy between the percussive elements and the more “musical” elements. “Aplicación Insospechada” absolutely nails it on that count, as its insistent car-compactor crunch is nicely balanced by creepily lilting loop that sounds like chanting children. Evangelista and Lanz hit upon another perfect combination with the aberrant “Ondas Transparentes,” which combines an oddly croaking and distortion-free Latin rhythm with a weirdly shifting and hallucinatory loop of more chanting.

None of the other songs on the album quite hit those same heights, but a few other pieces manage to succeed purely on sheer power and obsessive repetition, most notably “Japo,” which boasts an unstoppably heavy beat beneath a recording of a very impassioned Japanese dissident. “Michi Michi” also works quite well, simply because it throws all attempts at musicality out the window in favor of an absolutely bludgeoning thump buffeted by washes of white noise.

As for the remainder, they are basically business-as-usual for Arturo and Saverio, which is generally a good thing, except for one caveat: while nobody crafts beats as dense, visceral, and mesmerizing as Esplendor Geométrico, their mid-level material definitely starts to yield diminishing returns after while. That situation seems unavoidable, as Lanz truly lives or dies with his rhythms. Every song is essentially a frill-free vamp with no real development or anything else to grasp onto—either a groove hits the mark and floors me or it does not (and grows stale very quickly). 

That said, this is a very strong effort amidst a remarkably solid catalog and I am not sure any EG album could be much better. Consequently, this is probably as good an entry as any to this rather singular and crucial band. Those already familiar with Lanz’s work will not want to miss either “Ondas Transparantes” or “Aplicación Insospechada,” as they are easily as canonical as anything recorded during the band’s ’80s/early ’90s heyday.

Listen here.