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Spotlight 1
Albums
Aquarelle
Barem
Biosphere
Chubby Wolf
Collard-Neven
Cuni & Durand
FareWell Poetry
Field Rotation
Fonogram
Keith Freund
Freiband
Buckminster Fuzeboard
Harley Gaber
Richard Ginns
Grauraum
Hilton/Phillips
Jenny Hval
Jasper TX
Kenneth Kirschner
The Last Hurrah!!
Letna
The Lickets
Melorman
Penalune
Mat Playford
Radiosonde
Salt Lake Electric Ens.
Will Samson
Janek Schaefer
Phillip Schroeder
Silkie
Sølyst
Swimming
Nicholas Szczepanik
Talvihorros
Kanazu Tomoyuki
Luigi Turra
Watson & Davidson
y0t0
You
Compilations / Mixes
Bleak Wilderness Of Sleep
Lee Curtiss
Deep Medi Volume 3
Goldie
Goldmann & Johannsen
Heidi
Mindfield
Priestley & Smith
SM4 Compilation
EPs
Agoria
Bop Singlayer
Botany
Duprass
Margaret Dygas
Fennesz
Golden Gardens
I Am A Vowel
Mobthrow
Dana Ruh
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