Capriccio nelfango Vital weekly review

 CAPRICCIO NELFANGO (LP by Hazard Records)

Since starting in 1999, Hazard Records released 100 records, including this celebratory LP. That is quite something since I can say that Hazard Records is among the oldest netlabels. There have been only a few physical releases. This LP should have been released some time ago, but waiting at the pressing plant is like waiting for hell to freeze over. Well, almost. The gimmick of this LP is that it has three sides; at the end of the second side, there is a lock groove, and beyond that, there is an additional track. That is also a way of making a three-sided LP. There are 100 copies available of the LP, and they are not for sale, but you can help the label by paying something concerning the production cost. A reverse of Bandcamp's 'pay what you want for a physical copy; seems to be a more interesting sales pitch than a 'third side'. Capriccio Nelfango is a group that started months before the pandemic outside Barcelona and has members such as Pancho Balada, Jesus de la Torre, Joan Olle, Huanjo Lopez, Adria Bofarull and Anki Toner.  Hazard Records has not had a particular music style in which they operate, but it could be anything. However, freedom plays a role when it comes to their releases. Capriccio Nelfango one could classify a group of improvisation, but straight away, I'd like to state that none of this regular improvisation. The group describes it as 'post-produced improvisation', which, I guess, is a term that leaves something wide open to imagine. I am reminded of 'Great Babel Gives Birth', the one and only LP by UK's Metamorphosis (which I seemed to have misplaced for years now), who shared a similar lo-fi free rock improvisation combined with electronics and tape manipulation. The difference is that Capriccio Nelfango is further down the road regarding deconstruction. Their pieces are shorter, more broken up into alienating segments of chaotic charges. Rock-like 'structures' sit alongside pieces that freely work with 'other sounds', whatever these other sounds might be. I enjoyed their post-punk approach of deconstructing music, recording techniques, instrument handling and composition techniques; why aren't more people doing music like this? And where's that old LP? (FdW)
––– Address: https://www.hazardrecords.org/