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Francisco Lopez, "Untitled #180"
The latest untitled work from Francisco Lopez takes sound effects from Hollywood blockbusters as its source material. Generally, I prefer the live albums of Lopez over the studio recordings, and this one, despite the intriguing concept, doesn't go very far toward changing that opinion.
The best part of this disc is the meticulous editing and excellent sound quality. The problem is that there doesn't seem to be much development or progress over the course of these 45 minutes. One could easily start the track at any point and not miss a thing. As varied as some of the film sounds are, after a while they become an endless pastiche of the same juxtaposed sounds separated by Lopez's usual weighted silences. It's a pattern that Lopez has used quite a bit, and its familiarity drains it of its unpredictability by now.
There are some good parts, like the section about 25 minutes into it with large chunks of clunky sounds battling back and forth, or the thunderous roars at the 37-minute mark, but these aren't quite enough to save it from fading into the background. Other than the gorgeous sound quality and the vigorous editing, the disc is not far from a spooky sounds demonstration LP found in the cheap bin at the record store. If anything, this illustrates the symbiotic relationship between sound effects and image, and how deeply they rely on each other for maximum impact.
