Capsule CD Review for JAVA Magazine
Could Juan Garcia Esquivel be the only avant-garde lounge orchestra conductor ever? His work certainly stands alone, even in the rarefied air of "art pop" very few dare to breathe. In any case, the late composer has established visionary cred with this recently released, long-lost masterpiece.
Recorded in 1960, See it in Sound, combines sound effects and music to create movies for the mind in a hybrid of song cycle and musique concrete. This approach was all but unknown until the Beatles released Sgt. Pepper seven years later. Unfortunately, Esquivel was too far ahead of RCA. His record label deemed the work too weird to release and left it to collect dust in their vault for decades.
See It in Sound was finally released in 1999, nearly forty years after being recorded. This album is inventive and densely produced. Vastly entertaining, the non-stop surprises, sound effects and quirky sonic textures reward repeated, attentive listenings like very few CDs. And nearly fifty years after its birth, it still sounds like the future.
