James Murray: Ascensión por Chimo Pérez
Slowcraft Records
The score sound artist James Murray contributed to filmmaker Joan Gili Prohens' award-winning documentary Ascensión por Chimo Pérez, which monitors in fascinating detail the step-by-step creation of an artwork by Alicante-based fine artist Chimo Pérez (b. 1968), is a soundtrack, yes, but a soundtrack with a difference. Building on the customary practice whereby a film composer creates musical material to complement on-screen action and bolster the emotional tenor of a scene, Murray lessens the gap between the visual and aural spheres by establishing direct ties between Pérez's gestures and electronic sound design. To that end, as the filmed artist applies pencil shading, brushwork, and charcoal to the image field, Murray's sound textures, generated in real-time using tactile and generative instruments, accompany the actions, the result a symbiotic fusion of image and sound.
Presented in glorious black-and-white, the film (viewable online) traces the artwork's development from its pencil outline beginnings to completion. Other artworks are visible in the artist's studio space, such that the striking visages of Francis Bacon, William Burroughs, and Samuel Beckett appear to be looking on as Pérez's latest creation comes into being. The camera alternates between moving in close to record the artist's drawing, shading, and brush-rendering techniques and stepping back to allow the image in full to be seen at different stages of completion. In an era where digital tools enable visual imagery to be generated rapidly and with little effort, it's refreshing to be reminded of how special an image is when created meticulously by hand with physical materials.
Murray's music unfurls patiently in concert with the development of the image and, to his credit, the soundtrack never overpowers the visual display but rather operates in service to it. The surgical attention to detail Pérez brings to his process is mirrored in Murray's sensitivity to sound texture, and consequently the twenty-seven-minute soundtrack rewards attention whether experienced with the film or in its absence. Comprising five stirring ambient tracks, the recording moves between serene episodes and more animated ones. Luscious string washes, granular smears, and shimmering synth tones interlace during passages that swell symphonically and peacefully intone here and flutter and ripple there. In being Slowcraft's first dual film-and-soundtrack release (the physical release comprises two discs, a Cdr for the music and Blueray for the documentary), Ascensión por Chimo Pérez constitutes a significant step for the label.
It's rare for an artist's intimate creative process to be recorded on film; it's rarer still for the visual document of that process to be extended vividly into a corresponding music sphere in the moments that it's happening. But that's precisely what's shown in this engrossing portrait of Pérez at work. It's to his credit that he permitted Prohens to be present during an artist's most exposing moment and allow it to be shared. If doing so somewhat demystifies the act of creation, it doesn't make what Pérez creates before our eyes any less impressive.September 2023