EUS - Completud

A Closer Listen

The origins of Completud can be found in last year’s Culminación del Bosque, which José Acuña recorded as Contradicta.  Opening tracks “Revelación” and “Espejo Divino” (“Revelation” and “Divine Mirror”) express a yearning for the Divine, and hope of eventual contact. In Completud, the contact is made, although not until death.  At that point, the supplicant knows all things, understands all things, sees face to face and becomes one with the light.

This esoteric encounter is given physical form on this release, on which returns Acuña to the EUS moniker, albeit in subdued fashion.  A wooden cassette box – like a miniature coffin – is sealed by a small pane of stained glass, a window pane to eternity.  This tactile reminder of life, death, and life beyond death primes the listener for a soulful experience.  Completud (Completeness) seeks to translate the spiritual into sound, and does so with reverence and restraint. Acuña, well known for loud, dense, maximalist recordings, calls this a “lowercase” album, although its very humility lends it the possibility of transcendence.

The album’s two tracks unfold in a series of movements, but are best heard as a suite.  “El Origen Del Mar” (“The Origin of the Sea”) begins with sweet, hauntological strings and filtered choir, an orchestra crashing against the ears like breakers on a burgeoning shore.  One remembers that the earth was once formless and desolate, and the Spirit of God was moving over the face of the deep.  As one violin separates itself from the pack, it seems as if contact has been made, provoking an indecipherable vocal response.  The thickness of the piece recalls 10cc’s “I’m Not in Love,” which despite its secular theme also evokes the divine.  In the sixth minute, the ear detects church bells, too distant to be confirmed, too close to be ignored; then a slow, soft, comfortable tapping.  Voices continue to proliferate, sounding more like howls or cries than words.  The Spirit pleads for us in groans that words cannot express.  

Nearing the 13th minute, a darker tone intrudes.  Is there still conflict after death, a battle between the darkness and the light?  Or is this the last gasp of humanity, holding on to its physical form?  As the first side draws to a close, brighter tones emerge, as if one party is assuaging the other.  Now it is time to investigate “El Origen Del Bosque” (“The Origin of the Forest”).

The second side begins in mournful fashion, with pitched-down voice and elongated chords.  The drone begins to sound like an organ, the miscellaneous cries like souls trying to find their places in a churning afterlife.  One wonders how a conversation between points of light might sound.  The filling in of sonic spaces is like the answering of lifelong questions, no gaps left, all complete.  And in the aftermath, softer sonorities, leading in the midsection to vibrating melodies that echo the music of the spheres.  What is this forest?  Is it the Garden of Eden revisited or an all-new forest, one of understanding and growth?  EUS leaves it to the listener to decide, to choose a path in the sonic wilderness.

While there is no telling what communion with the Divine might sound like, Acuña offers facets that ring true: mystery, abstraction, space.  Comprehension seems just outside one’s grasp, achingly near, dancing on the periphery of perception.  Until one reaches a state of Completud, one may only wonder and seek, peering into the eternal, vision warped by occluded glass.  (Richard Allen)