Enchanted by the prospects of lovely weather, I found myself taking the first train to the medieval town of St. Albans, UK. Without any map, direction, or meaningful purpose, I anchored on the grass, in the middle of a field of white flowers. But as much as I would love to write travel guides and knickknacks, that’s pretty much where my high school biology classes left me.

Thinking about music is, among other cerebral activities bound to take me nowhere useful, one of the things that constantly occupies my brain. With no iPod nor sense of space, I started thinking about Guapo’s Elixirs, their 2008 musical potion that will manage to carry you to some imprecise realm, should you drink it. Be that as it may, it is indeed the journey that matters, and this one is to be memorable, provided one devotes one hour of complete attention to it.

Seeing the band live a few months ago turned me from a genre aficionado into a Guapo fan, for hearing tracks from Black Oni and Five Suns performed on stage made me become aware that the differences between the old Guapo records and their newest effort are deeply rooted in the way they approach the genre. Nevertheless, genres in music, as in any other art form, are a bit of a sloppy ground, but it is indeed in their overlap where quality resides.

RIO/Zeuhl/avant-prog are quite vague descriptions for your typical instrumental music listener. However, names such as Magma and Goblin should start to ring some bells, primarily the ones Guapo try to cue their listeners to. In that aspect, Elixirs is an incredibly different piece of work and an immense leap forward into maturity for the band, although the ones who may think otherwise are totally entitled. An Escher-esque architecture is on display for no less than 58 minutes - a bizarre, dark and contemplative flurry of sounds, in which organic instruments merge together in an elegant yet unearthly harmonic slow motion. Their tidal force succeeds in distorting the listeners’ interior strings in no time; intensely rarefied, the music swirls around your brain and continues to swoosh long after the last note is played.

Guapo has never been an easy listen, but with 6 tracks spreading over an hour they are really putting some people’s concentration and patience at stake. Autoharp, violin, viola, cymbals, and other instruments of sophisticated nature blend together into perplexingly complex musical structures, yet they still maintain their individual peculiarities. Listening to the whole or to these bare momentums seperately is entirely the listener’s call; trying to do both at the same time can only reveal the complications and atmospheres the band seeks to drag one in. Exquisite and sparse, every single note seems to be serving a specific purpose. If anything, Elixirs sounds overly thought out; this fall into contrivance might as well stem from the music’s ambition to assert itself in a not so very prudent manner. Regardless, the band decided to give up their raucous habits and explore moods and vast emotional fields instead.

While Guapo used to sound rather menacing and experimental, the music they put forward here is highly predictable but far from boring, unless you are unable to connect with it. Elixirs is not for every mood, certainly not for every hour and obviously not for every place, for being this well calculated can easily make anyone feel awkward. Like good old wine, one has to first get used to its unfamiliar smell, then take a couple of sips before starting to appreciate the taste and eventually, aftertaste.

Throughout the album, the music is to be found in a continuous transformation; its perpetual progress is difficult to acknowledge at first, but after a couple of spins you realize nothing is stagnant, and the instruments are real moving sands; even though not exactly in motion, they unyieldingly take you somewhere and, with a bit of luck, you might as well find yourself sitting on the grass, on a sunny mid spring day, staring at all the lovely people and thinking that hey, musical trilogies do work, despite our reluctance towards sequels.

Diana Sitaru