Superspace Records together with the local label Muki Records has released this past 2023 the reissue of the demo tape by the Peruvians Fractal, originally released in December 1998, in full swing of Post-Rock.
For the reissue, audios have been mastered and included 2 bonus tracks for the edition on digital platforms and another 2 different bonuses for the physical edition on trigipack CD. Also included are ad hoc texts by the English critic David Stubbs (author of “Future Days. Krautrock and the construction of modern Germany” and “Sounds from Mars. A history of electronic music“) and the Peruvian Hákim De Merv aka John Pereyra.
Originally released in 1998, Fractal feels like a glistening relic of the age before the internet fully enveloped the world. the musics that inform this album – the outsider electronics of Conrad Schnitzler, the black box experimentalism of Faust, the Dadaist, bass-driven energy of Cabaret Voltaire, the Cosmic Jazz of Sun Ra – would have had to travel physically across oceans, continents, to reach Peru, where they are processed, filtered, referenced and reinterpreted to result in a work with an originality, a character of its own.
With its buzzing, warm analogue drones, its radioactive glow, its shifts in colour and shape, its throbbing laser beams, Fractal can sometimes feel like an unmanned sound lab, mysteriously generating its own compositions at dead of night. But the very occasional murmur of a voice in a mix reminds you that human beings lurk in the machinery, discreetly determine its course.
These exquisitely maltreated electronics, at times remorseless, at times given to flights of agitation, exploration, illustrate that from repetition can come great variation, as monolithic blocks of noise give off sparks, which fly up, reproduce and take on lives and tangents of their own. Fractal is an electric feast for the imagination. – David Stubbs
The demo tapes have been remastered for its CD edition on the 25th anniversary of their reléase by Jorge González Ensamble.
Produced by Jaime Alfaro and Muki Records.
Purchase the album on Bandcamp: https://superspacerecords.bandcamp.com/album/fractal
Tracklist:
01. Ilumíname 05:21
02. Colisión Matriz 05:11
03. (Fixin’ To) Die 07:24
04. Soy Tuyo Señor 06:29
05. Lekta 06:53
06. Traslación 04:45
07. ¿c’o? 11:32
08. Te Amo (A la Luna y las Estrellas) 13:33
09. Las Olas de Marte 09:57