Spectreview: Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés – CLAMOR

Released: March 5, 2021

Art Pop
(Electronic)
(Experimental)

-PEARL-

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I’ve heard countless peers casually discount a lot of Latin music for its homogeneity; I used to do it too. That’s what happens when those who are raised in an undefined, vampiric culture (like most white people in America) encounter music grounded in eons of tradition. Yet that paper-thin reason for dismissal is dissolving as globalization continues to connect us all together like stem cells in a wounded arm. In this increasingly-enmeshed network, decades-old records in one set of countries receive a new context in others, while a hitherto-underrepresented people enrapture a fresh set of ears. 

Maria Arnal i Marcel Bagés are Catalan musicians that raise the music of their heritage to brilliant modern ends. Their 2017 debut, 45 Cerebros y 1 Corazon, took nuevo flamenco and added a whole new layer of nuevo, with Arnal’s rich poetry and trained voice at its nexus. Yet even that engaging take on Catalonian folk music couldn’t possibly prepare anyone for their follow up, a marriage of experimental electronic production and resplendent lyricism that reintroduces the duo as inventive, forward-looking pop artists.

In its first minute you might confuse CLAMOR for a standard, if solid, pop record. “Milagro” is the record’s most conventionally melodious track, but its recognizable chord progression and beautifully simple vocal melody belies its role as a red herring when the track heads heavenward, blossoming into a galactic synthscape that’s cathartic and restrained simultaneously. Everything afterward constitutes a steady ascent into imaginative territory, from the verdant grooves of “Ventura” to the naturalistic ambiance bookending the Björk-like “Cant de la Sibilia” (featuring the ever-prognosticative Holly Herndon) to the mesmerizing meteor shower of “Tras de ti,” whose captivating string arrangement come courtesy of the Morphosis Ensemble.

Every corner yields a new horizon, whether that’s a shift in mood or a new take on the record’s cosmic tapestry. The extent to which Arnal and Bagés demonstrate complete control over the moods of their songs is impressive, as is David Soler’s atmospheric co-production. By the time the climactic finishers of “El gran silencio” and “Hiperutopia” blanket your ears in several layers of euphonic vocals and glitchy shimmer, your breath might be fully taken away.

Arnal’s voice may be as engaging as ever, but it’s her words that provide the cherry on top. Those non-fluent in Catalan (like me) will lose out on the intricacies of her conceptuality in translation, but even then there’s pleasure enough in her articulation and in the sheer sound of her lyrics. Her vivid imagery, and the enigmatic way its packaged, is what draws; “Fiera de mi’s” pre-chorus (“Little path of pearls, bite/Bite into my neck”) may be the record’s most universally-referenced example, but there’s also the bittersweet post-mortem in “Tras de ti” (“Was it easier to imagine the end/Than to change from within?”) and the gorgeous extraterrestrial encounter in “En gran silencio,” on which Arnal plays the metaphorical alien to her doomed species. It’s enough that Arnal and Bagés use electronic instruments in a novel way, but that usage also seems to tie into the record’s deep dive into the existential and the supernatural.

Poignant and boundless, CLAMOR perfectly balances the high-wire act of avant-pop as if it were nothing. Through it, Arnal and Bagés pull off the hardest of artistic achievements: radically shifting from one sound to another and succeeding so extremely it transforms your perception completely. Whatever boundaries were holding them feel lifted, their potential now as limitless as the great beyond.

Highly recommended for the north of Arecibo.