Torso Corso Share “Miniaturas”
“Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end.” — Stravinsky
Miniaturas, the new album from the Mexico City-based experimentalists Torso Corso, is a kind of master class in engagement, offering the listener one rapid-fire opportunity after another to be thrilled, or startled, or moved deeply. Or all of those things at once.
It consists of 20 compositions — most of them just over a minute long, and none over two minutes — whose aggregate effect is that of a brisk but focused walk through a great contemporary gallery. In this sound art, the palette comprises free jazz, hardcore, the classical avant-garde, doom, noise, film music and other idioms, all masterfully layered, fused or juxtaposed for maximum impact.
With these sonic dioramas, the band aimed to move away from the improvisation-focused process of their previous efforts and toward a new compositional approach — one that would tap the full eclectic range of their influences and reflect their intensely collaborative dynamic. “In Miniaturas, both personal and collective influences coexist. Making short shots of music allowed us to explore polystylism and stretch the possibilities of Torso’s sound — from solo instrumental pieces to violent metal songs,” the band wrote in a series of emails.
Compelling melodies, rhythms, riffs and other musical elements are retained in their rawest and most inspired form. “Instead of developing these ideas into longer pieces,” they said, “we wanted to present them as they emerged, respecting their intuitive nature.”
The results are an exhilarating mélange whose forebears in compact composition run the gamut of expression. Think of Webern’s unnerving chamber music; the pulsating fever dreams of the Residents’ Commercial Album; the extreme-metal blasts of Napalm Death and Fantômas; and touchstones from below 14th Street, like the itchy, grooving no wave of DNA or John Zorn’s jump-cutting genre play. (It’s worth noting that Torso Corso took its name from a track by the French-born visionary Lizzy Mercier Descloux, an architect of no wave and post-punk in NYC.)
Ultimately, however, Miniaturas transcends evocation. It’s a powerfully unique document of an ensemble founded on intellectual and creative cooperation; what’s more, it’s the product of the fiercely democratic scene that supports underground music in Mexico City.
Torso Corso consists of Emiliano Cruz, electric guitar; Bernardo Moctezuma, electric guitar and keyboards; Ernesto del Puerto, tenor saxophone; María Goded, alto saxophone; Ayamel Fernández, electric bass; and Dalí Sánchez, drums and electronics. The band’s original impetus for forming was to “create a kind of fully scored no wave, but that changed over time,” they wrote. “We shared similar musical interests and wanted to use Torso Corso as a laboratory to explore the possibility of composing music as a band.”
