HPL: El Color que cayó del CieloDiseño por / Artwork by Mika Martini.
ARTIST: F600 + Mauricio Garrido.
WEB: Pueblo Nuevo.
WORK: The Colour Out of Space.
PLUS: No.
FORMAT: Digital.
LABEL: Pueblo Nuevo Netlabel.
RELEASE: April/2020.
COUNTRY: Chile.

El RUIDO es el Mensaje #2020

The Colour Out of Space is a fantastic story by Howard Phillips Lovecraft written in 1927 or so, for me and also for Mauricio (Garrido) all Lovecraft’s work is a huge source of inspiration; each story is a journey into other dimensions of reality, worlds and unique instances are explored that only help to broaden our horizons, and why not? to question the supposed reality as something unique.

With these words, Miguel Conejeros introduces us to his interpretation of The Colour Out of Space, a short story by H. P. Lovecraft framed in the genre of supernatural terror or cosmic terror (weird terror too). We could say that the revered resident of Rhode Island is the father of this literary genre of the early twentieth century and is also the creator of the most unimaginable worlds that a pen could give birth to.

The universe, or rather, the Lovecraftian cosmogony, has prolific fans, his stories abound in volumes of his complete work and his influences reach a plural audience that feels almost its own, that literary genesis and extrapolates it to his own art. The music or the sound, were not indifferent, the work that I will try to review is perhaps, only a small part of a vast universe through which walks the sound design, the radio theaters, the sound art, the conventional or traditional music and we could continue labeling until the arrival of the same Cthulhu.

Mauricio Garrido, Miguel ConejerosMauricio Garrido, Miguel Conejeros | PH: Juan Maralla

Residents of Santiago de Chile, both Garrido and Conejeros have a broad background that supports them, each in their art. In 2018 they come together to stage this particular work as part of an exhibition for which Mauricio was invited. At that time, Mauricio produced an individual exhibition of his plastic work at the Centro Cultural de las Condes, a collection of his works in collage format and each work was linked to a literary piece. This exhibition was called “LEER”.

Garrido genially invited different artists from different areas, such as theater, performance; poets, musicians and to these he proposed a free interpretation of one of his exhibited pieces. He invited me to work on Lovecraft and specifically on The Colour Out of Space, a work that can be seen on the cover of the publication made by Pueblo Nuevo. From then on, the work was conceived as a kind of radio theatre, following a tradition deeply rooted in our past as radio listeners, but unfortunately a tradition that has disappeared. The work was developed and presented at the Mauritius exhibition with the character of an unrepeatable happening, exhibited only once, but the truth inspired us so much with the result, we had such a good time performing it live that we decided to repeat it a couple of times and then record it in my studio, which is the version that can be heard in the Pueblo Nuevo edition.
El Color que Cayó del CieloMauricio Garrido, Miguel Conejeros | PH: Juan Maralla

F600 (FIAT600) is the name of Miguel Conejeros’ project, a musician and producer, DJ too, as he indicates in his presentation, has an interesting journey in Santiago’s music scene, since the ’80s. A scene that was growing as the blows of democracy were coming to light, his work can be heard in many places online and all bear his stamp, his mark. His background with the writer can be heard in this work, also published in Pueblo Nuevo, called Erich Zann.

From the invitation proposed by Mauricio, the motivation to make a cross between different expressions such as plastic art, literature, music and performance as a staging, is in itself a very interesting and enriching challenge as an experience of collaborative work, especially if we think that both Lovecraft as Garrido and I, are rather lonely people in the way we develop our work. With Mauricio I have a deep friendship and a great admiration for his work, we share many aesthetic affinities and many cultural references in common, besides being from the same generation, with a powerful common past, so when we propose a work together it’s quite fluid, it’s letting the ideas start to be found and the way is presented to us alone, almost magically and for this the lantern that Don H.P. lends us, is perfect!

The adaptations from one format to another, diverse or different, always lead to hateful considerations, the hosts of fans are always dissatisfied, there will always be something to improve, something that was missing, that did not like. Garrido and Conejeros face all criticism with this bet, they go through the pen with the collage to rest in the sound performance, inspired by the old radio theaters of Orwellian influence, adapting to their situation, putting date, name and address to his own version, both in the Voice and in the Word, the design of this literary piece put in sounds, will never be convincing and with that argument, fully convincing. It is agile, it catches you, the work of sound composition accompanies and awakens the attention required in a text like this one, it allows us to imagine new worlds beyond this world, it brings us the hand or the tentacles of Cthulhu to our rocking chair to take off our headphones.

Something that is taught in almost every work in which one is involved with passion, dedication, love and above all with an open mind, is that there are no limits to the imagination; you only have to work and follow your intuition.
Yes, I know: it’s a cliché!
But it’s real!

As real as that sometime the Primordials will return to claim what belongs to them, meanwhile, their spokesman more than 100 years ago, allowed himself to release in his own and collective stories, a small sample of what can be achieved with a passionate work.
Yes, we know, it sounds like a catch phrase, and we like it.

If you like, you can listen to the podcast with the review in NOISE #06.