Spontaneous Combustions by Agustí Fernández & Amidea Clotet

…by themselves…

In our culture, we have created a “picture of
the world” where, in order for things to happen,
they must have an external cause. So if
something is to move, then something or
someone has to push it, something or someone
has to move it. For as the proverbs and maxims
of different cultures proclaim: nothing happens
without a cause. And it is usually a “strongly”
external cause because everything needs a
cause or a creator – an igniter.

This is also the case with music – in order to
be created, sounded, someone has to invent it,
arrange it, then write it down or explain it
somehow, and then someone else has to
perform it. We are dealing with a multi-stage
process, and even if in the case of creating
music we are dealing with one and the same
person throughout the whole process, it occurs
in at least two forms: the one who invents,
initiates, and the one who reads the idea and
performs. The first starts the second one,
moving it, “starting the engines”.

Improvising has always been a kind of
rebellion, an opposition to this model of thinking
and acting. And free spontaneous improvising,
which as a rule does not need any pre-prepared
“starting conditions”, is simply a contradiction of
the prevailing beliefs, an activity showing its
dogmatism, falsity and inadequacy in the very
act of perception and understanding of the
world.

Fernández and Clotet do not need someone to
“set them on fire”, turn them on, tell them what
and how to do, how to start. They are sensitive
to the conditions and circumstances of the surrounding reality and their sensitivity is enough for them to start making music in any
situation. Because the starting point are sounds
– which never stop in the world, and are, so to
say, a constant component of reality. And the
basic tool of the improvisers is listening. It is
enough for them to play “by themselves”", to
“set themselves on fire”, to activate themselves
in a spontaneous reaction to the surrounding
sounds, joining them in the act of improvising.

The music on Spontaneous Combustions,
created in this way, is fresh and authentic
because it was created in an act of true,
unplanned and unprepared creation. There was
a coincidence – musicians-improvisers met in a
specific place, in a specific situation, in specific
sonic circumstances, and SELF-IGNITION took
place. And then everything just went naturally,
without hesitation or questions, without a doubt,
without calculating and planning too much. Now
all you have to do is fasten your seat belts, listen
and follow the unbridled, seemingly “undefined”
and shapeless, colorful, without beginning or
end, an incredibly varied and rich stream of
sounds. You have to participate in a sound ritual,
you can visit a bar, jump into a bottomless well,
feel the power, skip it, evaporate, and
spontaneously activate yourself. And everything
will turn out to be completely natural by itself.

Rafał Mazur

Independent label of free improvised music promoted by Agustí Fernández

agustifernandez.com