DE LOS BRUJOS, MAGOS Y ALQUIMISTAS

While Peru's jazz scene is openly receptive to innovations in the area of fusion (actually, there's plenty of room for inspiration), the rock scene is not usually that friendly to experimentations: Museo Heterdoxo is one of the few exceptions, and a very radical one, indeed. This duo of guitarist/drummer-percussionist really goes for the manifestation of lunacy through sound in a way that the habitual definitions of rock never grasp. Preserving crucial influences from RIO's deconstructive ideology, krautrock's nightmarish visceraity (Guru Guru, Kluster), the improvisational side of King Crimson, plus the avant-garde schools of noise and musique concrete, the duo displays musical journeys of simultaneous cration and chaos through its tight expressionistic attitudes. The use of psychedelic adornments and free jazz-friendly tricks is enhanced in order to fit the overall aura of mystic violence. The sense of doom is very recurrent, far away from pompous orchestrations or Gothic atmospheres: the explorations create and destroy their own orders as the musicians go on defying and accompanyinng each other. The opener 'Improvintro Aleatorio' is an adequate announcement of what will reveal the album's line of work, although there is certainly a controlled feel to the musicians' ialogues. It is on the multi-section suites 'Laberinto' and 'Testamento Pagano de los Discípulos de Behemoto' that the band stands very determined to follow the path of its own unearthly insanity. 'Laberinto' is the most urgent of the two, making sonic statments about the power of darkness in a ver yexplicit fashion; on the other hand, 'Testamento Pagano.' takes its time to elaborate and develop the sinister moods that go on in sustained crescendos and variations. Both tracks are infinitely creepy, full of restless, disturbing moods. 'Laberinto' includes a delirious guitar emulation of menacing wild dogs, which is one of many samples of terror exhibited right away through sound. Like I have just said, 'Testamento Pagano.' takes a more gradual approach to the expression of sinister mystery. The last 20'50 are accupied by 'Electrolam Experimusic Incomplaciente', which shows teh band at its punchiest. For the first 12 minutes, the duo displays a robust jam, with successive ideas linked to each other in a solid flow. For the rest of the track, the msicians indulge in a series of rough, cosmic sonorities, ending with a quote from the introductory section of 'Laberinto'. The guys of Museo Heterodoxo assume their roles as providers of hallucinations and disturbing emotions through sound - De los Brujos, Magos y Alquimistas is more than just a musical work, it is the testimony of a mental journey to the darkest corners of the world and of the human spirit.