"De camp" is the second album by the Spanish duo formed by sound artist Edu Comelles and multi-instrumentalist Rafa Ramos Sania. After their debut on Archives label with Botánica de Balcón, the two artists expand their sonic universe by refining their own style, aesthetics and sound design. The outcome is ‘de camp’, an album featuring five new compositions and Bleda, a piece originally released on El Muelle Records as part of a charity compilation album.

De camp encompasses a widening of the musical horizons of this duo, stretching the colour palette of their timbres and shedding some light to their darker first album on Archives. Botánica de Balcón revolved around setting up a dialogue between austere electronics and the sombre strength of the double bass. On de camp the composition process has been a back and forth exercise of recording and re-recording, dissolving the lines between instrumentation, electronics and field recordings and striving for a unity in language and aesthetics.

De camp means ‘from the field’ or ‘from land’ in Catalan. All track titles refer to Catalan names of plants found in the outskirts of Valencia, the city where both artists live.

De camp

Bleda

Bleda - Rafa Ramos Sania & Edu Comelles (Whitelabrecs, 2022)

Kanikosen 蟹工船

"Let's go straight to hell". So begins the story Kanikosen, a classic of Japanese literature written by Takiji Kobayashi in 1929.

I had the good fortune to come across this story in the summer of 2021, first in the comic version by Go Fuijio (ed. Gallo Negro) and then in its original novel format, published in Spanish by the publisher Ático de los libros.

Kanikosen tells the story of the Hakko Maru, a fishing boat operating in the icy waters of Kamchatka, and its crew: a motley collection of hardened sea dogs ruined by drink and women, university students in debt to the state and poor peasants on the verge of starvation.
As the blizzard bites the deck and turns the ships into ghosts, the skipper of the fishing expedition forces the crew to work to exhaustion and mete out brutal punishments if they dare to protest. Gradually, the seed of revolt spreads and, although ships of the Imperial Japanese Navy patrol the area to maintain order among the fishermen, the inevitable mutiny breaks out.

Its author, Takiji Kobayashi, was born in 1903 in Odate, Akita, and grew up in Otaru, Hokkaido. After graduating from the Otaru Graduate School of Business, he worked at the Otaru office of the Hokkaido Takushoku Bank. In 1931 he joined the Communist Party of Japan and two years later, in 1933, he died as a result of torture inflicted by the Tokko, the branch of the Japanese Imperial Police dedicated to investigating political groups and ideologies that might pose a threat to public order.

After reading Kanikosen I decided to make a composition and translate into music the sensations and thoughts that it had generated in me. And thus spread, within my possibilities, this little story full of universal human miseries.

The composition of Kanikosen was very intuitive and is based almost entirely on improvisations. Mixing and editing were the most decisive phases in the compositional aspect.

In the recording I used double bass, metallophone and virtual synthesizers.

Recorded and composed between July and August 2021, mixed and mastered in January 2022, by Rafa Ramos Sania in Patraix, Valencia.

Cover art by Patricia Gil Moral (Patpaletas).

Kanikosen

Kamchatka

Kamchatka - Rafa Ramos Sania (album "Kanikosen", 2022)

Music for piano, double bass and virtual synthesizers.
Composed, recorded, mixed and mastered by Rafa Ramos Sania, between May 2022 and January 2023 in Patraix, València.

Dedicated to Ramón Barce (Madrid, 1928-2008). Although it is not evident in the result, I would like to mention his important influence in the elaboration of this music.

Cover art by David Linuesa.

With your toys water overflow

Overflow

Overflow - Rafa Ramos Sania (2022)

Furari is slow-paced music made up of gentle instrumental melodies arranged with synths and acoustic instruments.
The term "Furari" can mean "aimlessly" or "leaning into the wind" in Japanese and is a tribute to Jirô Taniguchi's comic book.
Furari are compositions by Rafa Ramos Sania.

Pantomime

Pantomime - Furari (2023)

Calm pieces are ambient musical compositions that are crafted with synthesizers and acoustic instruments. Their intention is to evoke peacefulness in the listener.

Recorded, composed and mixed by Rafa Ramos Sania.

Rafa Ramos Sania

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