I have recently read the manga "Soil" by Kaneko Atsushi and watched the jdrama by the same title. As it is often the case with me, in creating this piece of music I found elements of that story. One concept in particular reverberated insistently -- perhaps the central concept of the story: that of the foreign substance, or foreign organism -- in Japanese, "異物" (Ibutsu). The unfathomable, the unexplainable, that's the foreign substance. It is the fact that contradicts the theory we were trying to hypothesize -- the element that escapes our understanding and gently destroys our model of reality. And yet, it is an element of truth -- a fact. A moment of light in the dark cave. A delicate line between yin and yang.
Music, perhaps?
Delicate line between heaven and earth…
The calm of the ages,
all the world’s worth.
Such minuscule measure,
while we think it so grand…
Just five specks of smallness,
This soft quiet land.
So frail and so fleeting,
in the end you will see
Simple dreams were Horatio’s philosophy.
For all the truth,
all creation,
all secrets of yore
Can be told in an instant,
by then they’re no more.
Ah, The Unexplainable
All worries unsettled,
heartache unresolved…
All questions unanswered,
with death, shall be solved.
We already teeter,
this sheer cliff so high.
When we fall to corruption,
insecurities die.
To end is to start;
to surrender is to know.
Despair and depression,
together they grow.
Hope shall meet hopeless
when there’s nowhere to go.
(Thoughts on the precipice, poem by Fujimura Misao)
Every once in a while I write music for existing films; Films that moved me and left something behind. This is the case for this music, "The Gate". When I close my eyes and stop thinking about the world-outside, this music opens the doors of the Inugami Palace for me. It is evening but there is still light; the surface of the lake reveals the presence of a gentle wind, caressing its waters. But the mild scenery is only an illusion. In fact, a different and stronger agitation can be felt in the air, anticipating unexpected and dramatic events. It's "The Inugami Family," by Ichikawa Kon.
This is a videoclip of my latest work, "Bodegón" (Spanish for still-life)
The video is a "visit" into a Bodegón in Colonia del Sacramento, Departamento de Colonia, Uruguay, with thanks to the author of the nice photo, Elisa Giaccaglia (https://www.pexels.com/photo/bodegon-18297346/)
"Bodegón" is a piece for two pianos, marimba, double bass, and drums. I initially wrote the drums part, which alternates 11/8 and 9/8 measures at 150bpm. Then I wrote a marimba part atop the drums. This resulted in a rather fast jazzy piece. At this point I realized that the piece had two "natures": when slowed down, the marimba notes sounded very much "Bachianas". I decided to explore and develop this aspect further: I assigned the marimba line to piano, added a new piano, and turned the piece into a neoclassical prelude. Then I added double bass, and used it as a layer that I overlapped to realize a fugato of sorts. Surprisingly, the experiment worked out.
I had now two very different developments of a same idea. I decided to merge them in a A-B-A' structure, with the last part only hinted and fading out, played by double bass and drums.
All the above resulted in my "Bodegón". I hope you'll like it!
(P.S. In Spanish it means "still-life". It comes from "Bodega": storeroom, storehouse, wine-shop, or even tavern.)