In Paris Transatlantic (May 09)

"This disc is based on the idea of recording what is not supposed to be, gear failures, the death of a PA system, unknown background noises." So writes Lausanne-based Francisco Meirino, aka Phroq (where did he get the name from, I wonder?), and that's all the info we get on the back of the disc along with a brief note to the effect that the music was assembled and mastered in San Francisco (local noiseniks Scott Arford and Randy Yau get a namecheck).

It may set out to document the sound of failure – that's the name of one of the album's eight tracks too – but musically Connections is a resounding success. It may be interesting to know where the sounds come from (malfunctioning cassette recorders and minidisc players are also listed), but what matters is what Meirino does with them; these are carefully crafted compositions, assembled with meticulous attention to detail and a keen ear for structure. Meirino's been fine-tuning his art for a decade and a half, and it shows.

Listeners to EAI and noise will be familiar with the sounds – buzzes, beeps, crackles, fizzes and the odd blast of devastating feedback – but it's great to hear them channelled into coherent compositional forms.

Come to think of it, this review probably belongs in the Contemporary section above – and the disc itself belongs in your record collection.

(Dan Warburton)

In Bagatellen (february 2009)

As writers and chin-strokers increasingly step up the rhetoric on the death of EAI, Francisco Meirino, aka Phroq, quietly places two new releases on the shelf for our consideration, both of which are reminders that lateral thought benefits music, be it through the formulation of new techniques or the exploration of tonal relationships.

Meirino's been around for a while, and in his 15 years of sound dissection he's certain to have seen a thing or two, not least the occasional emergence of debates around the viability or general health of certain music. These days, Meirino is primarily interested in something akin to a Cageian environment. While he doesn't seem married to the concept of environment-as-accompaniment, he has some excitement about the ghosts in the machines themselves. For instance, it could be argued that a failed disk drive is a casualty brought on by its surroundings, but we're not so interested in the why here as much as the what.

On Connections, Opportunities for Mistakes (Shiver Sounds), Meirino explores and exploits the relationship between programmable material and the potential for its failure. Any improviser can tell you that the best riffs are often found by accident perhaps resulting from the failure of others to keep up. A relay within a circuit is commonly placed to allow for electronic continuity in the event of component failure. Often a system's continuity succeeds with glitches undetected. One of the most interesting tracks is the shortest at roughly 20 seconds, "Minidisc Failure" is amplified n times to expose a device's aural characteristics on a bad day. The disc's ruling effect is its harsh ambiance, cleverly crafted using sources that would not have a place in music otherwise.

...You guys should definitely check out the Phroq discs if you get the chance.
Very highly recommended.

(Alan Jones)

In Octopus

De Chop Shop à Joe Colley en passant par Gert-Jan Prins, un certain nombre d'artistes se sont interrogés sur les failles de la technologie. Ou, plus exactement, ont pris le parti d'en tirer profit, insufflant de nouvelles vies à des machines anachroniques, recyclant des matériaux périmés, extrayant du sens de dispositifs qu'on croyait réfractaires à en produire. Francisco Meirino (revêtu comme à son habitude de sa parure pseudonymique : Phroq) fait partie de ce lignage. Sur ce disque réalisé entre Lausanne et San Francisco, deuxième parution de son propre label Shiver Sounds, il explore l'esthétique de l'échec, de l'accident sonore, du résultat fortuit, du parasitage jugé nuisible jusqu'à ce qu'il forme une matière à sculpter par l'artiste. Certains titres permettent peut être de mieux cerner la problématique : "Stress Recording of Distress" regorge de subtils grésillements électroniques, socle grouillant que viennent coloniser grillons inoffensifs ou termites destructrices. "Highspeed Pulse Deterioration" utilise des éléments semblables auxquels s'ajoutent une dimension gravitationnelle et quelques signaux de détresse émis par des satellites en voie de perdition. Le fascinant "Sound Of Failure", qui pourrait être le sous-titre de l'album, offre également une variété de textures abrasives qui évoluent imperceptiblement. Ces longs morceaux de bravoure sont entrecoupés de courtes incisions où, tour à tour, lecteurs de minidiscs, de cassettes et amplis déraillent et rendent l'âme. Pas mal de casse au total et un très intéressant travail de sauvetage de ce qui ne peut apparemment plus l'être, le tout assorti d'un sens aigu du détail.

"Half-asleep music" est une manière d'essai sonore sur les activités du cerveau durant une phase de demi-sommeil... Une musique électronique s'il en est. Dense, nerveuse, imprévisible et raffinée. Exploratoire!"
Metamkine

R E V I E W S

In the Wire (january 09)

The 24 untitled pieces gathered here were all recorded on the brink of sleep and, in terms of timespan at least, they?re incredibly various, ranging from the vanishingly brief to the positively sprawling. But there?s a unity of mood throughout the disc. The sensation is not unlike being a child in a strange houseat night — every rustle and creak is amplified in the imagination, and every pause is pregnant with the unknown.Track three ratchets up the tension, a scratchy, flutteringdrone which remorselessly rises in pitch even as it diminishesin volume. Track five gestures towards primal, ultra-entropicTechno, with the faintest whisper of structure exerting gravi-tational pressure on a cold cloud of dancing fragments. The final piece stretches out over 16 minutes — sussurations writhe like bacteria from some abandoned experiment, anddistant metallic impacts swim in and out of focus. It could bethe death throes of a Cold War power station — or could itbe just the central heating playing up again?Half-Asleep Music plays sinister tricks on the mind through-out. Muted and monochrome it may be, but it achieves,nevertheless, an unlikely potency.

(Chris Sharp)

In Braindead Eternity

Francisco Meirino (Phroq) recorded this material at late night - he was barely managing to remain awake - not because of a lack of alternative timing, but to carry out a private experiment after having read an article about uni-hemispheric slow-wave sleep, a phenomenon that causes half of the brain to rest while the other maintains alertness. According to this approach, the resulting music should be guided by the subconscious and essentially identified by what the composer calls ?raw intuition?. In reality, in one of those peculiar circumstances subverting the expected order of things, this project appears carefully planned and lucidly executed, which we unquestionably prefer to the inconclusive out-of-tune drowsiness of many drugged idiots worshipped by certain publications.

Mystifying snippets of pragmatism and bewitching sonic pictures of seductive stimulation form a somewhat disjointed narration, where both condensed fragmentariness and surrounding spheres of nerve-tickling frequencies have the same right of citizenship. The high quality derives from Meirino?s capability of shaping the fruits of his research into something that sounds like a consistent totality which, at times, becomes consuming to the level of near-debilitation. Yet the juxtaposition of opposite kinds of source, such as superimposed and manipulated electric hum and human mumbling, penetrates the ears without damage, any aesthetic judgement banished in favour of the pure enjoyment of a now alarming, now hospitable chain of events. Inconveniences in the compositional building are entirely absent and even the most radical episodes do possess a sturdy logic, which is what renders the overall process almost faultless. As far as the timbral relationships are concerned, let?s just say that Phroq is a noncompliant musician and leave it at that.

Definitely ineligible for the soundtrack to nocturnal quietness – indeed one wonders how Meirino managed to avoid trouble with neighbours whilst working on these pieces - Half-Asleep Music is a gutsy exploration of the semi-unknown aspects of transfixion bordering with illuminated edginess. A highly recommended, rewarding listen from every angle.

(Massimo Ricci)

A document of electroacoustic music performed live at Oblò in Lausanne, Switzerland,the 5th of March 2009.
Performed byKiko C. Esseiva (tape recorders and realtime tape manipulations) and Francisco Meirino (computer and contact microphones).
Mixing, mastering and artwork by Francisc Meirino, no overdubs.

R E V I E W 

In Vital Weekly (682)

A much more recent recording, from March this year, is by Francisco Meirino (sometimes known as Phroq) and Kiko C. Esseiva. The latter plays "tape recorders and realtime tape manipulations", whereas the first does "computer and contact microphones", which they call electro acoustic music, here captured in concert.
One piece of forty minutes of quite 'present' electro-acoustic music, with a strong love of 'continuos' sounds.
It's not easy to describe what's going on on this release. The sweeping sounds of tapes, crackles and hum of the computer and contact microphones make music that is quite dense, but also a true delight to hear.
Mysterious, dark, intense, but also delicate and precise. Improvised but almost sounding composed, save a for a few moments here and there.
An excellent work.
Pretty intense music.

(FDW)