Emilio by Ernesto Diaz-Infante

San Francisco-based composer/improviser/multi-instrumentalist ERNESTO DIAZ-INFANTE has produced a stunning piece of work with his new KSE album “EMILIO.” The Bajo Sexto is an important musical instrument in Mexican and Mexican-American culture, a rich 12-stringed instrument one sees/hears all the time here in San Antonio and also in California, associated with norteño music in Mexico and conjunto music in the US.

With EMILIO, Ernesto Diaz-Infante, who knows the instrument inside out, has recorded a series of 32 unaccompanied experimental solo performances on the Bajo Sexto, each totally different from the others, essentially taking his Chicano roots into the stratosphere of a 21st century post-modern Aztlán—-beautifully close-recorded, so it sounds as if you are INSIDE the instrument. Ernesto is especially interested in the percussive possibilities of his instrument, and one hears echoes of gamelan, tibetan bells, Cage’s prepared piano pieces, hailstorms on metal roofing, Native American drumming, and much much more, all created with no studio trickery on the solo Bajo Sexto. If you have ever been excited by the guitar work, particularly the solo guitar work, of Derek Bailey, Fred Frith, Hans Reichel, Jean-Francois Pauvros, Loren Connors, John Fahey, etc., then you’ll surely become equally excited by this incredible collection. Initially this was going to be a mini-cd with about 20 minutes of music and 15 pieces, but when Ernesto sent me an early version of that, I immediately told him that the project was too important for the limited mini-cd format that a lot of people cannot play on their equipment…and that he needed to record even more material. He did, and now you can hear the full 32-track EMILIO, for me one of the most important albums of the year in the experimental solo-performance field.

Mr. Diaz-Infante is also a composer, arts program curator, and head of the forward-thinking Pax label, which offers a number of experimental and free-improv discs worth owning…you can read more about them here:

https://paxrecordings.bandcamp.com/music

EMILIO is a pioneering set that takes the Bajo Sexto into previously uncharted territory and rates alongside (IMHO) the classic albums of forward-thinking solo guitar improvisation. With Ernesto’s skill as a composer, each piece creates a different and fascinating world. It’s an exciting place to be.
Bill Shute, Kendra Steiner Editions

My Uncle Emilio passed away this past April. He spent most his life in a mental institution. And while we visited him from time to time, his presence was mostly experienced in a foreboding and ghost-like way. My parents would warn, "Keep THAT up and you'll end up like your Uncle Emilio!" Apparently, my behavior would make them nervous, and my parents were from a world where the sought help from priests instead of psychiatrists for mental disturbances.
So throughout my life, when things feel a bit slipping . . .
I find my thoughts always end up on Emilio and his sequestered life.

I learned the word "yoik" from the liner notes of a Morton Feldman recording and found the description striking. "A yoik is meant to reflect a person or place. This does not mean that it is a song about the person or place, but that the yoiker is attempting to transfer 'the essence' of that person or place into song - one yoiks their friend, not about their friend."
This album is a "yoik" to my Uncle Emilio.
Ernesto Diaz-Infante, June 2011

REVIEW:

Diaz-Infante, of Mexican descent, lives and works in San Francisco as a composer and improviser. He studied composition at The California Institute of Arts. As a performer he settled down in the world low profile improvisation. Most of his output you’ll find on Pax Recordings, a label owned by him. Not his newest release however, a cd-r that is released in a very limited edition by Kendra Steiner Editions. It is a very personal document, dedicated to his uncle Emilio who passed away last year, spending most of his life in a mental institution. The records takes no more then 32 minutes and contains the same number of small miniatures, played mainly on the bayo sexto, a mexican 12-string guitar that plays a central role in texmex music. Besides Diaz-Infante plays electronic tanpura and singing bowl on this recording. From what I know of his work, Diaz-Infante choses always for a radical approach. First words that came in my mind when listening where ‘what do we have here? I just don’t know’. All pieces are of a startling simplicity. Most pieces move linear, others cyclic, and others chaotic. They never develop into something. Comparing his art with that of improvisors like Frith or Reichel don’t make sense. Diaz-Infante is more punk and dada. His music is as unpretentious as music can be, but if ‘les extrèment se touchent’ the opposite might also be true. If we ask what it is that Diaz-Infante is looking for, intimacy may be a keyword. Diaz-Infante creates soulful atmospheres trying to near sound in it’s physical appearance as close as possible. The pieces are very close recorded, almost from the inside. This made me think of an older album of experimental songs, where he ‘sings’ very soft in a close microphone. Besides Diaz-Infante creates a wide range of sounds. A palette of very different colors, all coming from the same instrument. Also many of the miniatures produce a meditative effect although Diaz-Infante is not aiming for it. All in all it was a rewarding exercise for me in trying to take something simply for what is it. Thank you Emilio.
Dolf Mulder, Vital Weekly

Ernesto Diaz-Infante’s musical compositions span a broad perspective: transcendental piano, noise, free and structured improvisation, avant-garde guitar, field recordings, mail art and experimental song. He received his MFA from CalArts in Music Composition, where he studied with Stephen L. Mosko and Wadada Leo Smith. He and filmmaker Marjorie Sturm run Pax Recordings.

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