While it's possible that I have never publicly stated it, I'm sure my friends must have had to endure my claims that I don't seek to be a beatmaker (it requires an emphatically minimalist intelligence that I don't possess, or that I don't have the patience to develop), nor a producer (the oceans of technique and technology suffocate me), but a composer. These three profiles can indeed overlap, but they cement their respective identities insofar as they proceed in different ways, and insofar as they yield equally distinguishable musical materials. How such differences manifest themselves (pure aesthetics?) is beyond the scope of this text, a mere introduction, justification (excuse) and heartfelt written token of gratitude (thank you, EVEL, Alfonso and all those who read and listen!).

Listing some of my particular musical preoccupations (obsessions) might be appropriate, however: color and harmonic richness, which enables and stimulates the design of large-scale tonal plans; a holistic conception of musical form, each parameter controlled by the composer in necessary and constant dialogue with every other parameter; directionality of discourse, based on the classical dialectic of tension-release at the small scale; expressive and emotional variety, etc. If I have succeeded in arriving at such high ideals in Anachronistic Compositional Values, may your fresh ears let me know; mine, for the time being, no longer discern where they stand on these pieces.

The overall title encompasses multiple meanings; the titles of each track do not. (Has instrumental music ever meant anything?) When I published Failures, I anticipated a potential return to old compositional procedures: historically classical, intimately familiar. And so, after a number of releases pounded via Audacity, I have once again made peace with the discipline, meticulousness, attention to detail and forethought that working with sequencers requires, even when the outcome proves to be messy. I have once again dismissed external samples and human voices altogether, but nor have I fussed over insatiable searches in synthesizer and effects libraries (I never do: I remain comfortable near presets).

The implementation of any global tonal plan has fallen by the wayside, admittedly, but without detriment to relishing, once again, the expressive potential of each modulatory instant or episode. For I strive, however difficult, to never lose sight of Schubert's tonal transformations, whether catastrophic or gradual, nor of Beethoven's attempts at manipulating musical time, while we’re at it: these are conceptually to blame for how the timeline in Anachronistic Compositional Values unfolds, violently disfigured.

Anachronisms, historical errors, temporal displacement. Parachronisms? For EVEL, and for all of you, this is Elektronische Musik: classical, historically consolidated; nothing new, in fact, but always attractive to those who do not have an orchestra at their disposal and still understand the upper stages of composition as if they were orchestrating for a virtual, synthetic and, (only) at times, dehumanized ensemble.

Thank you, thank you, thank you all.

Anachronistic Compositional Values

[if gravity binds, other forces must surely repel]

"I felt free. Perhaps overwhelmed by an excess of compositional possibilities. I am suddenly reminded of the Russian Suprematists, but such a comparison does not seem appropriate here: do I set off from the conceptualization of a negative space that, in this case, I actually choose to fill? (First, is the distinction between negative space and positive space valid at all?)

Minimalist constructions: harmonic foundations reduced to three closely related chords that engulf a timid melodic surface; formal expansion bounded by the ubiquitous mechanism of strict repetition; timbre and dynamics, intertwined, the ultimate propellers of the musical discourse. I pay homage to all this, albeit from my own domain. For perhaps I do not know how to do it from any other." [Fibbbi]

---

Artwork by Olga S. Ortiz

www.cosmiclithium.com

Gravity that Binds

Caterina Barbieri - Gravity that Binds [Fibbbi Cover]

Prior to my interest in electronics, or simultaneously, there is a rather classical background in piano and studies in Musicology. From this vantage point, it was a bit over a decade ago when I first saw in a then unfamiliar sphere of music, that which we call (or imagine as) "electronic" music, extremely attractive possibilities regarding all that had to do not only with color or timbre (this is usually the norm), but with onstage performance as well. Indeed, in machines and computers I found, at last, tools that allowed for sufficiently convoluted music to be performed live on one's own: one gained in autonomy, though, of course, also at the risk of isolation and loneliness.

If such was my interest, one could ask why it took me so long to bring my music to a live setting (January 13, 2024, marks my onstage debut as Cosmic Lithium).

[Full text available at www.cosmiclithium.com]

XOXO ;)

Livedebut (Desde Proyecto Celesta)

A few weeks ago, my friends from Breakfast Club at Radio Relativa invited me to participate in one of their episodes. I was so grateful for the offer that I got cocky, and have now ended up with this: two hours of new and semi-new (but unreleased) music, a couple of rehashes from my own back catalog, and some tweaked samples thrown into the mix (homages, celebrations, favorite musics!).

Here are some qualifiers, descriptive witticisms, for Destructive Editing, so titled:

- ambitious;
- colorful, melodically opulent (and cutesy and tender);
- tumultuous, polymorphous, but somehow coherent after all (the music wanders off course for minutes at a time, but carries on forward, optimistic that it will soon arrive at the next clearing);
- irregular, hectic at times and languid or meditative at other times;
- personal and intimate, without falling into the autobiographical or programmatic.

I’ll shut up, but not before sending massive thanks to Breakfast Club, to Radio Relativa, and, as always, to all of you who listen. :3 :3 :3

www.cosmiclithium.com

Destructive Editing

Destructive Editing [Breakfast Club Radioshow #42]

Life brought me closer to the ways of the string quartet during this past year. Here's my neurotic attempt at one: my latest sonic contradiction, accompanied by linguistic gymnastics, presented to you in square aspect ratio. If this all sounds just a bit weird, it doesn't sound weird enough.

Check out "Strng Qrtet" on all streaming services and stores.

www.cosmiclithium.com

Strng Qrtet

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth I

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth II

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth III

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth IV

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth V

Six Movements for the Disjointed Youth VI

Yerevan

On Hope, Intrusive Thoughts, and Light A

On Hope, Intrusive Thoughts, and Light B

On Hope, Intrusive Thoughts, and Light C

Three Exercises in Lassitude

XOOOOXXOXXX

X OOOOXXXOXX

X O OXOOXOXXX

X X X XXOXOOOO

X O X O XXXXOOO

X X O X X XXOOOO

X O O X O O OXXXX

X X X X X O O OOXO

X O X O O O O X XXX

X X O X O O O X O XX

X X O O X X O O O X X

Synthetic Flux No. 1

AUT (Take Her to the Moon for Me)

mx7 01

Album: Minimal Tendencies, Anemone Fields [31/10]
Track 6

www.cosmiclithium.com

Minimal Tendencies, Anemone Fields

Gone

cosmic lithium

Pinned to spotlight

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