Bongo Joe’s La Ola Interior compilation of 1980s Fourth World infused Spanish ambient is a third eye opening experience

La Ola Interior documents an outsider tape scene that incorporated Fourth World dimensions into blissful analogue electronic music on the Spanish mainland during the 1980s. Less a mirror image of, and more a picture that can be hung on a wall and stepped through from what was going on in the Balearic scene over on Ibiza, these adventures in Spanish ambient and acid exoticism feel as if they could reshape the present electronic landscape from the past. The scene was made up of two factions: the young underground experimenters of the day seemingly at odds with the older artist producers with means, yet both parties existed in the margins. Loïc Diaz Ronda has dug into the archives of this rich but little-known period and put together a many-splendoured compilation for the open-eared Bongo Joe label. A high vibrational energy courses through the veins of La Ola Interior, at times inviting flashbacks, dream auras, enlightenment and quiet revolution.

The reality bleed minimalism of “Transparent” by Miguel A. Ruiz signals the beginning of immersion, a steady sonic sweep that is subsequently opened out by the almost painfully beautiful glimpse behind the curtain of Camino al Desván’s “La Contorsión de Pollo”. Things get more off-kilter with the mesmeric “Hybla”; hybrid sounds pulled from the consciousness of Finis Africae and brought to life through the application of deep diving cultural investigation. There’s something incantatory about the ways in which the voices undulate in and out of the background, or how the exploration of polyrhythms is akin to casting rune stones. Elsewhere, Ruiz’s “Trivandrum” ignites the stars on a chemically enhanced up-all-night journey of self-discovery, whereas Esplendor Geométrico’s “Sheikh” is a drum heavy workout that appears to fuse the Ethnic Folkways Library with degraded early acid house aesthetics.

“Horizonte Paseo” by Suso Saiz was recently discovered and is released for the first time on this compilation. Its sonic stillness nevertheless suggests the universe folding in on itself to a pin-point of oneness. Saiz does not however dictate how the listener should feel or where their minds should go. Indeed although the music throughout La Ola Interior is the very opposite of wallpaper ambient and deals in specificity rather than attempting to be vaguely appealing, there’s an attendant openness that invites the listener to explore their inner landscapes in their own way. For these experimental compositions from the back room of electronic music history act as powerful triggers, somewhere between MDMA flotation tank tests and Proust’s madeleine episodes.

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Stewart Gardiner
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