Leonardo Rosado – Mute words
“Mute Words” is a fragile album. Gentle sounds of field recordings that are sometimes processed to tiny little flickers intertwine with floating drones, fragments of melodies and distant voices to form the eight tracks of “Mute Words”. The voices of Barbara de Dominicis, Alicia Merz and Michelle Seaman – sometimes sung, sometimes spoken – are often not more than a faint whispers, which add a texture of of nostalgia and intimacy to the pieces. Some words stand out though, and just as beacons in the mist of sound they add a notion, a signifier to the sounds, but without revealing the whole story. The vocal here are rather a subconscious way of hinting towards certain emotional states than straight storytelling – which works perfectly for this setting.
The drones, carrying those eight pieces, float along gently with light movements. They play a major role in the ethereal appearance of “Mute Words”. The album is soft and welcoming like a lucid doze on a warm summer afternoon with the noises moving in an out of focus and comforting sounds of voices in the background. Surprisingly, a look at the lyrics reveal the opposite with their dark and beaten words holding inner discourses of sorrow and despair. And to be honestly the tension between those two states works beautifully for this release. One tiny thing, I would have preferred, if the words used in those tracks, would not have been used in the booklet. This way they take away a little bit of the eerie and mysterious feeling of the vocal mutterings. Nevertheless, “Mute Words” is a well and hauntingly beautiful executed piece of music.
