Francisco López (1964- ) is an experimental musician and sound artist based in Madrid, Spain. His soundscape works, which utilize his own field recordings, take form as concerts, workshops, and sound installations. Since 1993, he has also released a substantial catalogue of sound pieces, collaborations with artists in both live and studio settings, on CD. A trained entomologist, López’s has recorded all over the world, from the wild plateaus of Patagonia and the rainforests of Costa Rica to urban and interior settings. López infuses his soundscapes with sampled sounds from sources ranging from insects and human voices to heavy metal bands. He often manipulates the recordings so to erase any hint of where the sound may have come from, a process López describes as “exploring blurred territory between reality and the creation of self-contained sound environments through a long process of transformation of sonic materials.” That being said, López has been described as the successor of Pierre Schaeffer’s acousmatic listening. López attempts to depict through his works an environmental acousmatics, or what he fondly refers to as “the Hidden Cicada Paradox” – that “there are many sounds in the forest, but one rarely has the opportunity to see the sources of most of those sounds.”

In an effort to further direct the listener’s attention to the sounds themselves rather than their sources, López leaves most of his recordings as “untitled,” and even his album covers are sparse of imagery. Carrying this attitude into the concert setting, López strongly suggests that listeners wear blindfolds during his performances. He minimizes the referential potential of the visual even further by darkening the performance space and concealing his gear under a fabric cloak. In an effort to create an immersive experience, audience chairs are situated around López and his gears in concentric circles, facing away from the center, with speakers lined up along the perimeter of the room.

What López aims to promote through this unusual setup is a type of “profound” listening. In the vein of Schaeffer, this mode of listening “explores and affirms all that is inside” sounds. This absolute, purist conception of sound fights against what López calls a “dissipation of the inner world.” “In my conception,” López describes, “sound recording does not document or represent a richer and more significant “real” world. Rather, it focuses on the inner world of sounds.” In this sense, López’s work moves away from rationalization, categorization, and representation of sounds to the “being” of sound itself. López sketches through his work a realistic, non-bucolic view of nature that acknowledges how the richness and mystery behind the sounds of the soundscape.

While López has stated that “this form of listening doesn’t negate what is outside the sounds,” Kim-Cohen has criticized his work for falling into the trap of the “sound-in-itself” tendency, asking his audience to listen to sounds blindly and “ignoring who or what might have made it, with what materials, or for what purpose.” This is true in the sense that López rejects the extramusical: “…I have lots of ideas about the world and politics and whatever, but I think these things shouldn’t contaminate, shouldn’t pollute, the music. I’m very purist.” However, López still takes on the greenworks stance by recognizing that his “environmental sound matter” is not, as he has elaborated, “‘sound for the sake of sound.’ I do not defend sonic matter as an aesthetic or conceptual category, but as a gate to different worlds of perception, experience and creation.” His works defend natural soundscapes in a different way, drawing awareness towards them not through a “futile” attempt at representing their reality but through allowing the listener to “explore the substance” of their reality – things like texture, complexity, richness, time, and space; things that are “not necessarily representational.” This type of exploration is essential because it places the listener in an active position of interpretation rather than passive reception. “Every listener has to face his/her own freedom and thus create,” López’s concert program notes state. While the acoustic ecologist might reject his work as practice of schizophonic disconnection, López’s creativity ultimately gives his listeners a responsibility and an opportunity to reconnect with soundscapes from an immersive place of deep introspection.

You can learn more about López and his work on his website athttp://www.franciscolopez.net/index.html. Many of his pieces have been uploaded on youtube, search “Francisco López.”

Works Cited.

1. The Official Francisco López website, Web. http://www.franciscolopez.net/index.html. (Accessed 12 July 2016).
2. Kim-Cohen, Seth. In the Blink of an Ear: Toward a Non-Cochlear Sonic Art. London: Continuum, 2009. Print.
3. López, Francisco. “Profound listening and environmental sound matter.”Audio culture: readings of modern music. New York (NY): Continuum International Publishing Group (2004): 82-87.
4. Burns, Todd L. Interview with Francisco López. Red Bull Music Academy, 2011. Web.http://www.redbullmusicacademy.com/lectures/francisco-lopez-technocalyps-now. (Accessed 12 July 2016).