Poetry and exploration on an abstract draft made out of colour and shadows (…) NÚVOL Tuli Márquez
‘Cadells’ is Oriol Solé’s debut LP on the Repetidor label. After many self-released discs (under the pseudonym Iga Memento) and his work with Ghandi Rules OK and Alado Sincera, Solé’s new work is a collection of songs exploring the dichotomous relationship between pop and noise music. In ‘Cadells’, Solé successfully manages to bypass what is predictable and trite in both styles.
Minimalism, psychedelia, field music… Solé’s compositions draw from a broad sound palette. Each song is built on a fragile, fractured structure. This allows for the music to veer off track and venture down untrodden paths. The places the songs go to are not commonly explored. An abstract presence moves through these solitary places or songs. At times it does so erratically and at other times with composure and serenity. And yet, the rugged skeleton is the perfect support for the emotional motifs of the songs. These motifs are stripped of all artifice and have been carefully and patiently scattered across the songs. The opener ‘Quinze dies’ deals with the unpredictability of what’s to come -I know the more days I count the less days are left / for my leg to fully heal / but maybe not my arm (…). Along the same lines, ‘Daus’ looks at what is left to chance -I drop a die and it rolls downstairs, turning and turning / not yet / what? (…).
The album is punctuated by instrumental interludes. Oriol’s language seeks beauty around the sharp edges and it does so in a fashion that is reminiscent of in-your-face amateurism, hermetic finesse, narrative discourse, cosmic mystique, poignant mystery, warm-hearted low-fi and melodic drones. Just like the puppies that name the LP, full of life but helpless in the face of the world looming over them, Solé strives to reconcile a lyrical discourse with a sound landscape. He can place Ophelia lying on a lake bed of abandoned beauty in ‘Al llac’ and also sing the praises of love. That same love is reflected on a mirror in ‘Maniquins’ and becomes unrequited in ‘Altituds’, with its lyrics that bring Ulisses’ Ithaca to mind. All in all, the songs on the LP can be interpreted according to the story that the listener chooses to tell. That said, ‘Cadells’ is also a very coherent record. One might even think of it as a single song that evolves and takes on thirteen different shapes in an evenly manner. One listen is all it takes to resolve the paradox.
