It was in 2014 when Fon Román (Vigo, Spain, 52 years old) began to delve into the poetry of Octavio Paz, one of the great names of Mexican culture who was born exactly 100 years earlier, in 1914. It was a time of change for the musician’s life, and he felt that Mexico could be the right place for that transition. “(The country) has a very strong vital pulse. Either you go with its flow, or you can’t stand it. I felt that it suited me well,” he says in a central park in the capital. During a visit to Bellas Artes, the musician buys a book by Paz. He randomly chooses one of its pages, and reads the title of one of the poems: “The Fall”. He composes. Four years later, he manages to use this composition inspired by the poet’s piece to open and close a play. The director is delighted with the result, and presents Román with a lesser-known poem by the author so that he can experiment by putting it to music: WhiteThat recommendation, which occurred six years ago, was the root of Blank, an album released in May, where the guitarist covers Paz’s mystical work in a minimalist way; and with which he seeks to close his Mexican stage.
It is early, and the day is still cool from the rain that fell during the night. Román gets out of a car a few meters from the green of the Parque de los Venados. He covers his head with a cap; and from his shoulder hangs a shoulder bag, from which he will later take out one of the 300 copies of the vinyl record. He had not visited this place on any of his trips to the country. The guitarist first set foot in the capital in 2000, when he performed with Los Piratas, a defunct band that left its mark on the Spanish rock scene of the 90s. Caught up in the lively life of the city, he returned on several occasions, but it was in 2014 when he established his residence for six years.
In 2019 he launched The Spark, the Flame and the Smokean album where he tried to show the influences that the country had on him; something that he has also tried to reflect in Blank“You start to hear harmonies that end up permeating my compositions in some way (…) The latest album also goes through places that could remind you of Latin American music, a bit because of the harmonic progressions and all that. Although I am still in a more rock or pop territory,” he explains calmly.
A game of chess and the barking of a dog
It is difficult even for the musician himself to pigeonhole the album into a specific genre. During the interview, he will reflect on this. “It goes through different stages. Since it is recorded acoustically, you tend to label it there: ‘It sounds acoustic, because it is folk’. But then I have two songs played with electric (guitar) that you would not say that so much anymore,” he comments. Even in this journey of sounds, the 39 minutes of duration of the album have something in common, an instrumental minimalism: drums, bass, guitar and voice. “In Blank“I wanted the poem itself to have the leading role, the voice in this case. I wanted the production not to invade the poem too much, so that there would be no distractions in the instrumental sense.”
“I wanted the poem itself to take center stage”
Fon Roman, musician
The silence in Venados is momentarily broken by the barking of dogs playing in a small fenced area just a few meters away. Román is sitting on the cement bench, resting his elbows on a chess table. The poem White (1967) by Octavio Paz, like chess itself, becomes a complicated game. Written in three columns, it allows for various readings of a text influenced by the mysticism of the poet’s stay in India ―where he was Mexican ambassador between 1962 and 1968―.
The musician jumps over the separations with which Paz altered the simplicity of the poem: “The beginning / the foundation / the seed / latent.” The Mexican poet plays with these blanks throughout the poem, a form of silence that takes on a leading role in understanding it.
―Do you think silence is important in the album?
―Yes, I had it very much in mind. There is a topic that is a cappella (referring to the track VIII), in which only the ambient (sound) comes in at the beginning. You only hear birds, I recorded it at seven in the morning. I said: “I put two microphonesI record it outdoors and take a shot a cappella“That’s where silence comes in,” he says.
Román plays with that “silence” influenced by the work of the American composer John Cage, 4′33″which, he says, also influenced the play of silences in Paz’s poem. In that piece, Cage stops using the instrument for four minutes and 33 seconds and contradicted this act by stating that he was not silent. “For him, the work was not really what the musician had to play, but the silence he was causing, that is: the noises of coughs, someone’s movement…”, he says.
“Almost a commercial suicide”
There is no reason to explain why Román decided to publish an Octavio Paz album at this time. It has been six years since that theater director recommended him Whiteand 10 since the centenary of the writer’s birth. In the conversation, he also highlights that he takes from the poet only the tints of his artistic facet, moving away from the personal figure of the same. “In my career, I always let myself be carried away by what appears to me in a natural way. I felt that White I had to do it somehow. I just let myself go with that impulse,” says Román, who strokes his face in thought as he thinks of an answer.
Román echoes the review made by journalist Fernando Neira, who described Blank as “a risky and bold project”“(The album) is me going off on a complete tangent. It’s almost commercial suicide. But I can’t avoid it in my career, and in the end it’s my way of doing things. As he (Neira) said: ‘These are Fon things’. I base myself on what I’m feeling. The creative part goes much further than the commercial part.”
Now he does what he wants with his music. He has invested time and money in this project which, he says, represents the end of a stage in a country that supported him for six years. “Although I left Mexico, I already carried my backpack with me, all my influence, and for me, (Blank) is a closing of my Mexican stage. It’s like a blank slate and now I’m moving towards other territories,” he says.
From his shoulder bag he takes out the vinyl. He wanted the project to become something more than the songs. A journey of tapes, contacts and handmade recordings. He wanted the album to be recorded the way vinyl was recorded in the year Paz wrote it. White: eight one-inch tracks. “This vinyl has nothing digital about it. We recorded it on eight tracks, live, except for the vocals,” he explains. In this process, Román relied on different experts to capture his idea, including a German who did a master’s degree focused on this analog tape mixing method.
The detail of Blank It even reaches the color of the vinyl, a pristine white. “I went crazy with this,” he jokes.
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