berekekê – Estirpe (Lineage)

berekekê – Estirpe (Lineage) – Album Review

I’ll fully admit that it took me about twenty five seconds or so before I realized I was actually listening to some music after pushing play on berekekê’s new album Estirpe (Lineage) – it’s got one heck of a slow, gradual build & quiet opening with the way “Estación De Destino: Kab’an” begins.  Much in the same way that the music of stuff like K-ORA has been to listen to, you’re essentially listening to a slight wind blowing metallic sound at ya, before you get to your first semi-lifelike noise around the 1:40 mark.  So, sure…I mean, it’s somewhat cinematic in that respect, suited for soundtracks and such perhaps.  As for the average everyday listeners out there, of course they’re going to struggle with this.  Let’s be real, they were struggling from the moment they saw “Estación De Destino: Kab’an” was seven minutes and thirty-eight seconds long, and even more so after they realized there was no hope for them to be able to sing along with it.  Such is life as an artist I suppose; they’re classically misunderstood folks, aren’t they?  I’ll be real with ya…even I don’t know if there’s enough going on with “Estación De Destino: Kab’an” to keep me engaged and/or satisfied with it…it’s so relentlessly filled with space that it almost feels like we spend the majority of our time listening to something that’s nearly silent.  It does get arguably more interesting, or at least intense, as it plays on and expands into what sounds like a battle scene from the original Star Trek eventually throughout its latter half, but it all still seems fairly improv-based, rather than unmistakably rehearsed.  Not quite sure what to make of this beginning really; it seems risky to me.

As I slid into the second track, called “Vocal Training,” I had a brief moment or two where I was pretty much convinced that we weren’t really going to hear any vocals at all.  And…maybe that’s true, maybe that’s not – I’ll let you decide.  Again, similar to how the music of K-ORA draws upon the themes of machines communicating and such, perhaps “Vocal Training” simply refers to a type of vocals we don’t use as human beings.  Totally possible.  The machines are learning, after all, aren’t they?  As to whether or not you’ll be able to sing along with this second track…the answer is likely to still be no.  Unless you’re a fax machine or an old lathe from a wood shop that’s recently discovered you have a soul…chances are, you’ll only be able to listen and not sing along with “Vocal Training.”  Obviously that doesn’t REALLY matter in the grand scheme of things and what makes a song a song…but yeah…the highly experimental nature of berekekê’s music makes it pretty clear pretty quickly that this record isn’t for the casual listeners out there that are into their Top-40 tunes.  This is an involved type of listening, where textures and tones are the star of the show, with ideas that are generally out of this world – literally.  I tend to like the bizarre and strange side of this music scene we share, but I’ll readily concede that listening to Estirpe (Lineage) is by no means a simple task; it’s unique for sure, but definitely tough to stick with too.

“Divertimento Para Cámara Y Androide” seems like a fun title, doesn’t it?  Heck, at the beginning of this third track, it even seemed like it WOULD be fun to listen to as well!  It…umm…probably doesn’t go on to stay that way for many of you.  Some of it is pleasantly electronic, some of it sounds like castanets on crack, and then there’s a whole section that sounds like you’ve got your car being repaired on a lift while you sip a bad complementary coffee and wait for the process to be finished.  It gets to a point that, after three consecutive experiences that are well beyond typical and questionable in all kinds of ways, that we have to ask & wonder – do you listen to your own music berekekê?  Like, when you go to put something on in the middle of the day…are you choosing to listen to Estirpe (Lineage), like you would want other people to be doing?  It seems like a practical impossibility.  I can make a case for just about anything, but I’ll admit, the disconnected way that berekekê is making music is a very tough sell…to me, and to anyone really.  That being said, my experience with music and artists like this, is that they’re very much looking forward to being told their tunes are outside the realm of what us normal folks would listen to…in fact, it’s usually the point.  I felt like he’s actually got something quite pleasant in the digital combo of melody he’s working with at the beginning & end of “Divertimento Para Cámara Y Androide,” but that’s about it for me.  The rest is a mix of sounds that seem to have no real relation to each other.

Can we catch a bit of a break with “Más Que Cadenas?”  The answer is ultimately no – but by this point in the record, I’m pretty sure that everyone would have realized what they’ve signed up for in listening to Estirpe (Lineage).  It’s guaranteed to challenge you, and to be honest, I do like that about berekekê’s music.  “Más Que Cadenas” eventually develops into something that’s fairly intriguing…mysterious, but like, super intense and somewhat frightening at the same time too…and that’s kinda neat.  Look…the experimental realm of music is a tough genre to come out with a win in terms of universal accessibility, and we already know that – but it also feels extremely uninventive to simply say that this is music that would be better off as a soundtrack to accompany visuals, regardless of how close that is to being the truth.  Instead, I choose to focus on finding the gold where it is to be found – like, LISTEN to that spot around the 4:30 mark for example…that’s freakin’ brilliant if you ask me.  The ice-like melody juxtaposed against this booming sound of imminent doom…that’s the kind of contrast I can get behind, and it’s genuinely interesting to me.  But “Más Que Cadenas” also has the advantages of actually using the space with sound for us to hear, a coherent structure that makes more sense, and even some melody in the mix for you as well.  No knock against the songs that came before it…they serve an artistic purpose for berekekê I’m sure…but if he’s looking to steer things in a direction that other people might stand a chance of being able to listen to, then “Más Que Cadenas” was definitely a shift in the right direction.

The reality is, not all music is made for mass consumption.  That doesn’t mean it wasn’t made with a passion of a different kind – of course it is!  berekekê clearly grew up playing in a different sandbox than the rest of the kids around him did, but that doesn’t mean there’s not a whole bunch of people out there that wouldn’t be interested in what he’s creating…again, of course there is.  It’s absolutely a very narrow slice of the potential audience out there in the world, but that’s still a whole bunch of people that simply want to hear something drastically different, and this is all certainly that.  My personal issue at times with music like “Invernadero De Plantas Cibernéticas” and the tunes that surround it on an album like this, is that it can be very tough to identify what does actually move the story of a record and its songs, forward.  Like…I listen to “Invernadero De Plantas Cibernéticas,” and from my perspective, we’ve basically already been there and done that with similar sounds on Estirpe (Lineage).  I get it, I get it – they’re TOTALLY DIFFERENT SONGS – and yes, I’m aware of that – but what I’m getting at is that they’re actually not to most listeners out there.  When it comes to what the public perception of a series of songs like this are, with no tangible structures that they’re able to grasp, all they hear is a bunch of different noises and sounds collected together, which can make the whole experience feel very one-note.  Don’t get me wrong, I actually completely like and support the ideas in the experimental realm – even the ones on this album here – but at the same time as acknowledging that, I can still advocate on behalf of creating more identity within each song so that we get the separation we all need as listeners.  It’s a roundabout way of saying that the album itself is interesting and somewhat memorable to listen to, but also entirely forgettable as individual songs at the very same time…and I think that’s avoidable.  I think the evolution of the genre is such that the masses would be able to remember certain songs, and I’m not so convinced that that’s the state of this style of music in the way it’s currently being created.

I also need a whole different keyboard to type these song names out, but that’s a story for another time.  “Sofía: La Narradora” is up next, and to a degree, possesses a bit more of an accessible sound I suppose.  I’ll be real with ya and say that I’m totally splitting hairs in saying that – none of what you’ll find on this album is geared towards what the average everyday music listeners would be able to hang with.  That’s just the objective truth, but I’m quite sure that’s something that berekekê has long understood.  You don’t really make music like this unless you’ve come to understand that you’re more likely to please a very niche portion of the potential audience than you ever will be able to please the masses.  So be it.  We all choose a path to take at the end of the day, and this is the one he’s deliberately chosen to take.  So if you feel lost in listening to “Sofía: La Narradora,” even with it being one of the more theoretically accessible songs on the album, don’t sweat it too much – I guarantee you’re not alone in feeling that way.  Even with the melody added into this particular song, I’ll readily admit it wasn’t really the kind of melody that I felt I could personally enjoy or would want to revisit…so I guess that’s something to consider as well perhaps.  “Sofía: La Narradora” just felt like it was wandering in the clouds in search of a substantial idea that consistently seemed to elude berekekê this time around.  That happens sometimes, especially when you consider how many chances an artist like berekekê takes in comparison to others.

As we head into the album’s second half with “Ágoras Abisales,” we’re back in the realm of quiet space once again, where there’s not a whole lot goin’ on really.  Oddly enough, after my experience with “Sofía: La Narradora” right beforehand, I felt like I kind of welcomed the quiet calm of “Ágoras Abisales” a lot more than I might have otherwise.  There can often be meditative qualities and hypnotic aspects to music like this…a cold mechanical serenity of its own design, that I feel like we can appreciate.  Like I said earlier on, a record like this is going to challenge what you think you know about music and intentionally show you a whole different side as to what it could be.  You might not remember songs like “Ágoras Abisales” to be honest – but you WILL remember the experience of what it was like to listen to berekekê’s perspective on what music can be, I promise you that.  “Ágoras Abisales” is like the negative space on a plate when you’re eating a meal…it theoretically serves a purpose, but you still can’t dig into it in the same way you would be able to with the actual food, know what I mean?  It’s almost like an exercise in the absence of sound, instead of what you’re used to hearing in the music that you listen to.  In any event, I actually ended up feeling like “Ágoras Abisales” was one of the album’s better tunes from my perspective…it doesn’t do a lot, but it does allow your imagination to fill in the blanks as you listen.

OKAY…there we go!  Track eight!  “Trans-fussion” – you will finally stand a legitimate chance in being able to consume this tune, no matter who you are or what you normally listen to.  Don’t get it twisted though – berekekê is obviously still going to do his level best to morph and manipulate any degree of accessibility until it’s so strange that most folks wouldn’t want to stick around right to the end, but that’s just the way he chooses to go about making music…that’s not on you, that’s done purposely, by him.  So, sure…“Trans-fussion” might be arguably more accessible than the rest, but don’t get too carried away with what you might think that would be, you get what I’m saying?  It’s still 100% more bizarre than the majority of what the masses would be inclined to listen to, and it’s not like berekekê is ever all that concerned about who will make it to the very end.  He’s making the kind of music he wants to make, and that’s perfectly fine.  I don’t think that the lineup of songs will get any more accessible than what you’ll hear on “Trans-fussion,” so take it or leave it, it is what it is.  A record like Estirpe (Lineage) isn’t designed with the masses in mind; it’s created to challenge convention and the constraints of art.

“Laboratorio De Experimentación E Hibridación Genética,” is indeed – and this is true – another song.  At a whopping 8:37 in total length, it’s basically its own mini EP on the inside of this album.  Am I hearing anything that justifies the size?  That’s a difficult question to answer.  Trust me when I tell ya that by around the three minute mark you’ll start to wonder if there’s going to be anything substantial happening soon if you weren’t wondering that already.  Basically it sounds like someone left the faucet dripping into a glass cup for the most part…and I’m struggling to think of how many people I’ve met in life that were like, ‘you know what I wish there was MORE of – music that sounds like someone left the faucet dripping into a glass cup!’  The point, berekekê, is that there probably aren’t all that many my friend.  Yourself…and maybe me on the right day…and that might be the end of the list right there.  When you get to about 5:30 into “Laboratorio De Experimentación E Hibridación Genética,” you’ll have to acknowledge that nothing all that significant is going to happen in the remaining unheard length.  So again, I ask…who is the potential audience for this music, and how does an artist like berekekê reach them?  I think we all need a little energy and a bit of a pulse to the music we’re listening to, especially in the case of something 8:37 in length.  “Laboratorio De Experimentación E Hibridación Genética” is nearly registering a flat-line when it comes to lifelike sound or engaging our interest…and I’ll admit, even I can’t help feeling like berekekê could do more with the time he has on each track.  This is extremely ambient.

Look at it this way…the longer a song goes on for, the higher the expectations become.  Not because longer songs end up being better than shorter ones, that’s actually quite rarely the case – but because the implied length hints at the potential for MORE happening at some point along the way, and when that doesn’t happen, we can feel letdown as listeners.  In my opinion, berekekê often seems to do a bit better with shorter lengths, where those expectations aren’t as lofty.  So take something like “Yo Fui, Yo Soy” for example – it’s likely going to be more interesting and engaging to listeners in its first ten seconds than the entire length of “Laboratorio De Experimentación E Hibridación Genética” was prior.  Does that make it a better song?  I’ll let you be the judge and jury on that.  I’m probably more partial to the things that berekekê likes personally…like, I’d probably listen to something like “Laboratorio De Experimentación E Hibridación Genética” more readily, because at least it feels like a cohesive idea, even if it doesn’t change all that much.  “Yo Fui, Yo Soy” just sounds like confusion to me for the most part…another song that’s in search of its purpose, rather than having berekekê playing with the level of intention and purpose we tend to want to hear in the music we listen to.  Sure there are scattered moments of stuff we might be interested, but in its totality, a song like “Yo Fui, Yo Soy” is a collage of colliding sounds that don’t really add up to a whole lot by the end.  So while I might argue that there’s still more accessibility in a tune like “Yo Fui, Yo Soy” because of its lively movements and vibrant sounds, it’s kind of like eating empty calories with your ears…satisfying for a second or two, but it ain’t enough.

“Memento Mori” might be a better example of something that works in a short length.  With its gigantic drum sounds and the clever use of production to keep the layers of sound moving in different directions, there’s actually quite a bit here to keep you engaged and listening.  Obviously at this point you can be sure that nothing berekekê is going to create would be defined as ‘normal’ – but I think, by track eleven, we’ve finally stumbled into what would be considered to be the album’s most accessible song to ALL.  And I’ll be real with ya…when I first started spinning Estirpe (Lineage), I wasn’t quite convinced we’d ever end up finding anything like “Memento Mori.”  This is the right way to compromise with your audience without having to compromise who you are as an artist though, you feel me?  This is still berekekê very much being berekekê, but he’s doing it in a way that listeners might truly be able to follow along with…and there really hasn’t been too many examples of that throughout the lineup of songs on Estirpe (Lineage).  So take the victories where you can find them dear readers, dear friends – “Memento Mori” is likely the track that the vast majority of us would agree on overall, and that’s good!

Having said that…you regular readers know how I feel about polarizing music too.  Ultimately, that’s also a good thing.  Love it or hate it, at least people are talking about it and debating it…as opposed to the last thing any of us creative-types would ever want, which is a statistical tie between complete and total silence, or someone telling us ‘good job’ when you know they didn’t even bother to really check it out.  As you arrive at the end of Estirpe (Lineage) with “Argonautas Fugitivos Sobrevolando Perseídas,” I think most of us will likely feel like we’ve had enough for now, but will eventually become curious enough over time to give it another spin somewhere down the road.  Like I’ve been saying all along – you won’t likely remember a thing you actually listened to by name, but you WILL remember listening to the music of berekekê, and ultimately, there’s value in that.  I might not know exactly how you’d quantify it, but there’s value in that, somewhere.  “Argonautas Fugitivos Sobrevolando Perseídas,” creates a decent conclusion to the record, and while much less intense than the song before it was, still manages to meet listeners at the halfway point between art and accessibility.  You might even argue that the final two tracks are the best to be found on this album…I do think that’s a distinct possibility.  At the very least, they’re likely two of the record’s most accessible, and I think after all the musical madness & bizarre ideas that we’ve been exposed to throughout Estirpe (Lineage), a little accessibility really does go a long way.  There’s a chilled out vibe to “Argonautas Fugitivos Sobrevolando Perseídas” that I felt worked for me…another blend of curious-meets-mysterious melody, and another victory for cohesive concepts on this here album.  It definitely makes for a unique experience of late-night listening, that much I can tell you for sure…I’m not sure it’ll have the same potency in the daylight, but in the dark of night, it’ll likely stimulate your mind through its use of sensory sound, while drawing on your imagination…and your fears.

Find out more about berekekê from his official website at:  https://www.berekeke-artist.es

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