Ulmus • light/darkness [LP]

It is typical (or a cliché) that music has a healing power. Nothing escapes this effect, and in different quotas or circumstances, a guitar pluck, an unexpected voice or an unprecedented noise amplifies the vibes and leads a new vital rhythm to to whoever experiences it. Undoubtedly, everyone will use it as it better suits them, and it won’t always work the same, deeply depending on the case, and on the individual. However, there are some ways, with no need to be evaluated, guiding you through the path which heads for redemption: personal and collective. That's it Ulmus, Xavi Forné' s own project (Error! Design, Malämmar...), whose elements flee from the most cerebral analysis: you simply have to live it and feel it. Sensitivity and darkness may be antagonistic and, on the other hand, vertebrate a common thread. Many times, the ogre (or who seems to be so) is the first one you want to cuddle, because in the end, this is about desire (with its virtues and its shortcomings).

Somehow, sensitivity is not that much in the appearance, but in the depth of the look, and Xavi Forné‘s doesn’t mislead: is it turns off, he will warn you with his silence, and if it shines, he will seduce you with a tender smile and the therapeutic tempo of his songs. In a live setting (having not experienced it yet), his music provokes tears: It is the emotion of those who understand this process of adaptation and, as in vulnerable moments, music shows up with a lifesaving float and crown. This, in musical terms, starts from folk (dark), and already at that stage, you can add the extra label you prefer: ambient, experimental, jungle and, with no intention to attach it to a specific box, these seven songs of “light/darkness” are indebted to post-rock. Light here is intimate and special, but since 2013, as a result of an episode of agoraphobia, he took shelter among those columns being built to become Ulmus and faced the need to share it. On his own, and with his closest ones, unconditionally and without judging, neither the music nor its whys and wherefores.

Sensitivity and darkness may be antagonistic and, on the other hand, vertebrate a common thread.

"light/darkness" is a journey (eminently instrumental), this necessary for Xavi Forné and really inspiring for whom are behind that glass: sometimes so transparent and sometimes so gloomy. What leads the album is the classical guitar, in the foreground and exposed to all kinds of sequences. Beside and in tune, Elias Egido (Standstill, Eh!, E150) double bass and the guitar of Eugeni Pulido (Santacreu, Yourgrace), are the key to understand the epic beauty of "Nerthus", the emotional and nostalgic message in "Frigg" or the further than twelve minutes of "Ritual", skeleton of the album and the theme which better explains the meaning and raison d'être of this album. The climax is set up by "Lytir", a piece in which each note is synonymous with tearing, the conscientious avatar of a catharsis. However, it is also worth going into details: Pablo C. Ursusson (Sangre de Muérdago, Ekkaia) contributes the hurdy-gurdy (folk instrument) and Kathrine Shepard of Sylvaine adds some vocals. Recorded and mixed by Victor Teller, the album was mastered in Sweden by Esben Willems of Monolord. So, do we choose light or darkness? Or both at the same time, which also match. The sample is on the master walls of Ulmus.

- words by Toni Castarnado.