Fransisco Lopez - Rock or Schlock?

He's great. Good thing you went to one of his concerts. Although I didn't "see" anything, I was pretty happily overwhelmed by the sounds I heard when I "saw" him play. One set was basically this amazing, un-processed recording of a Costa Rican rainforest (which left me thinking how he got the sound of rain falling on foliage without recording rain hitting a microphone or any kind of protective covering); the other was the same recording, manipulated to the point of sounding entirely different, all of the natural sounds mutated to sound like something else entirely.

I like the "metal" CD that Pitchfork reviewed, but I can see (er...) how it's not for anyone. I don't think the writers at Pitchfork have much of an understanding of any music more difficult than sub-par IDM (excepting maybe Mark Richard-San, who didn't write the review, I don't think), so I took the review with a grain of salt. A friend gave a more honest opinion when we walked into a record store when it was playing, and he basically had to leave because it upset him so much.

in answer to your inquiry, "yes."

Er, which inquiry?

Oh, I get it. I think. Sometimes he rocks but sometimes he's schlock? Or he rocks and is schlock at the same time? Or he did a CD that sampled rock and it was schlock?

yeah, that.

seriously, though, untitled 104 amuses me mostly because i recognize some of the samples from my mis-spent youth and it is pretty damn obnoxious, taking death metal and making it systems music of a bastardized sort (although weakling could be said to do the same thing). the vinyl release on mego (untitled 92?) is really nice for what it is, but for listenability you're probably better off with other vinyl abusers like institut fuer feinmotorik or pure's "the end of vinyl." the other lopez i've heard i, uh, haven't heard...

I met this guy who's a huge F-Lo fan. Any more opinions on Lopez's music, ILM?

Untitled #123 is a very good album. Much of it is extremely quiet and subtle with some sort of wind-like sounds. This is jarred by violent bursts of static that end up taking over the disc. The music he played here was similar.