Various - Frontier Life mp3

"Frontier Life" is a feature length documentary film by HANS FJELLESTAD, showing life along the border around the San Diego area. It's kinda hard to comment on a film one has not seen, but this album, utilising the talents from both sides, stands alone as a curious, intriguing and entertaining documentary of the palatable experimentalism happening in that area. There's nothing here which might fall into some clichéd idea of what hybrid American-Mexican music might sound like - few if any Folk references (CLOROFILA being the only obvious exception, and their sound references elsewhere in the globe), very little mainstream Spanish sound - this is solid, rich, full-blooded music taking reference points from our increasingly complex multi-cultural multiverse.

The sound varies in approach from blip and boom electro rhythms, through compelling danceable ditties full of a rich smile culture attitude, to rolling sheets of ambient soundscape, warm and inviting, rather than Isolationist.

The album is an eye-opener on the talents residing in the area - those of you who read reviews will be aware of the ACCRETIONS / TRUMMERFLORA COLLECTIVE musicians and their various projects, but it's surprising to see other composers and performers in the San Diego area are not only in possession of an equal talent, but can now and again blow TRUMMERFLORA's panoply of ability out of the water.

CLOROFILA's entry, f'rinstance, has such a dynamic danceability that you hardly think about what the musical structure is. I feel it's a Frankenstein hybrid of Cajun, Jungle (in both the atmospheric Tribal beat sense, and percussively, the Drum 'n Bass sense), and a rich studio-spawned electronica, liberally laced in effects without taking anything away from the jolly upbeat core. More a celebration of life than a piece of music to analyse. A poor show that there's only one track included on the collection - but then another façet may reveal flaws and weaknesses.

In a more mainstream electronica vein, LAS CAJAS DEL RITMO play a nice piece of busy-but-relaxing ambient wallpaper, reminding me more of the kind of thing coming out of the EXPERIMENTAL SEAFOOD RECORDS label in the UK - building on complex drum patterns and busy synth lines. PANÓPTICA again visit familiar territory - a cerebral brew of Click 'n Cut rhythms like dance music in some evolutionary stage between raw circuitry malfunction and mainstream dance. They're unafraid of using raw electronic sounds and broken click percussion. LATINSIZER too manage to create a textured polyrhythmic amalgam which is at once passive and warm while being erect and alert enough to make for bright brain music. If this music had a tactile equivalent, it would be soft warm velvet.

The two oddballs in this collection are MARCOS FERNANDES' "Bullets For Ballots" - lifted from the "Hybrid Vigor" album - with it's slow languid drugged wasp crawl rhythm which transmutes into some dreamstate Jazz workout, threatening to break free while always held within the rigid confines of the 'Twin Peaks' - like sequence. And

The less structured, more ambient and experimental works come from HANS FJELLESTAD, drifting whine-works which enwrap the listener in cossetting warmth. POINT LOMA add their gradually evolving piece which seems to encapsulate a passive rhythmic piece within a biosphere of filtered noise, a elliptic balloon of peace wrapped around a less sedate structure.

If nothing else, this is a useful album for hearing what is going on in the San Diego area. They say it's a small world, and this is further proof that 'they' are right - most of this material could have been recorded anywhere. Having said which, this is from the heart - the genuine article, rather than some jumped bandwagon facsimile.

Originally reviewed for Metamorphic Journeyman.