Chubby Wolf: Los que No Son Gentos
Dragon's Eye Recordings

Los que No Son Gentos has many of the earmarks of Danielle Baquet-Long's previously released work, regardless of whether it was issued under the Chubby Wolf or Celer names. There are the enigmatic track titles, for one, which suggest stories all by themselves and allude to her poetic endeavours (“Existence is both a Horizon and an Indictment” and “Deeper and the Damage From” are but two representative examples of those included), and the tracks themselves, which threaten to evaporate altogether, so delicate and faint are the ambient wisps of sound that are brought into being. Like the Celer recordings she produced with Will Long, Baquet-Long transmutes a diverse range of source materials—in this case bass guitar, analog synthesizers, bells, voice, and laptop—into sounds of largely uniform and always fragile character. What Los que No Son Gentos also has, of course, is a sense of mystery, as we'll never know exactly what Baquet-Long intended by the material, given that her tragically premature death on July 8, 2009 from heart failure leaves us with no opportunity to delve into the mind that created the material. Of course, even when she was alive, mystery was a key part of her music, as she didn't typically elaborate on the meanings associated with the work but instead opted to let it speak for itself and retain that mystery. As was her wont, she left no explanation as to why the album was made nor what its inspiration might have been, but instead moved quickly on to the next project, almost as if she sensed that time was short and that creative work would have to be done with dispatch.

This latest addition to her discography presents fifty minutes of music in an edition of 200 copies. There's certainly nothing unfinished about the material; its soft, Celer-like swells are as crystalline and cathedralesque as anything she released during her lifetime, and Los que No Son Gentos is a solid collection that sits comfortably alongside her other releases. Though fourteen separate pieces are presented, they play like variations on a theme, with each a subdued meditation of near-transluscent design. Glowing and shimmering placidly, the pieces wash soothingly over the listener, inducing a state of heartbeat-slowing calm as they do so. Baquet-Long lives on in the album, just as she will continue to do so in the future, as Will has promised to continue releasing her unpublished music, writing, and photography into the world, along with the remaining Celer titles the married couple created while she was alive.

September 2011