El Marrano de la Razon (meaning "the Converted Jew of Reason", i.e. Dutch philosopher
Spinoza), the project of
Mexican digital soundpainter
Edgar Oliver Lorenzana Medina,
also a member of Xochipilli,
unleashed unbridled creativity on
Oximoron (2008), notably the
25-minute wildly anarchic collage of found sounds El Bauharroco,
and on Retruecano (2009),
especially the 18-minute Los Acontecimientos Irredentos se Precipitan Infumables en la Redentora Inmovilizacion de lo Soportable,
a dense atonal vortex that implodes in a monastery-like choir,
the archetype of his abstract anti-ambient soundscapes.
A more mature technique of psychedelic collage of musique concrete appeared on
La Incoacion de las Desbordantes Anomalias Apocalipticas (2011).
The ghostly whirlwind of Vlanii sounds like a distorted Indian requiem,
and an Australian didjeridoo triggers
the massive wall of noise of Das Runf.
Liposuccion Magnetica is ethnic-neutral chaos of extreme dissonance.
The spastic anthem for vocals and drums Himno meets a distorted
sample of a choir, like a collaboration between
Wild Man Fischer and Karlheinz Stockhausen
of Hymnen fame.
The tribal 16-minute Animal Ghost '69 Rider Machine is the musical
equivalent of someone throwing up while riding a wild horse.
The 19-minute La Marcha de la Realidad Caduca takes the premise of
Chrome's Zombie Wardance and
slowly disintegrates it via an industrial loop.
The 12-minute Mini-soundtrack para una Sesion de Sexo Orgiastico Enteogenico is his (self-destructing) remix of La Bouche's dance-club hit Be My Lover.
The sprawling Garin (2012) contains 19 songs of various length, and, given the wildly different quality, feels like a collection of leftovers and unfinished experiments.
We go from the disco-folk of Raiz del Sol (9:24) to the
grotesque ballet of Palpitan mis cartilagos (8:59),
from
the macabre hallucination
Incertidumbre (7:30)
to
the dizzying spiraling cosmic drones of
Garin (29:00), a flow of living forms that peaks with a maximalist concerto for loud metallic squeaks,
a veritable electronic symphony.
Nothing feels focused, but maybe that's the whole point.
Drifter (2013) contains a 34-minute piece,
Drifter, that mauls and dissolves a stoner-rock guitar solo
The 73-minute album Vogue (2014) contains 14 songs, notably the
Pneumatica Barbarie (7:02), the soundtrack of a brain lobotomy,
the dark cosmic Zopilote Negro (8:04),
and the violent distorted concerto of
No (10:13), one of his punk-industrial peaks.
Dada Brotherhood Vol I-III (2016) was a tribute to the Dada movement of a century earlier.
Prolepsis (2019) is a self-indulgent experiment in droning music.
The three longer pieces are
little more than static drones. If Analepsis (8:19) doesn't go anywhere
and Prolepsis 2 (22:57) overstays after seducing with some eerie
resonance, Prolepsis 3 (13:03) redeems the album with a more dynamic
excursion.
Discordancias (2019) proved that he was releasing too much material
with too little editing.
If the radioactive wind of Viviendo en la Fabrika (16:00)
lays an unnerving layer of suspense,
and the lugubrious drone of Anfang (9:58) exudes a similar post-apocalyptic feeling,
Fabrika Viviente (16:01) is a bit too subtle (and long) and
the wavering Absolutamente Redux (11:03) is disposable.
ten-minute Viviendo en la Fabrika
A Blaze In The Southern Sky (2020) contains three compositions:
At The Home Of The Order Of Melchizedek (16:09), a deliciously chaotic hybrid of kraut-rock and acid-rock that descends into grating drones,
the statically corrosive
Divine Harlot's Cosmic Cunt (13:02)
and the horror vortex of Sacred Rape (16:07).
Adefesio (2020) is an inferior work that contains three less intense
and more confused compositions:
Liran' Drone (15:02), a grotesque Dada dance that ends in nine minutes of subdued vocal and instrumental noise,
Adefesio (19:44), a sublime Stockhausen-esque collage of voices whose only problem is that it indulges in orgasmic segments,
and Pixie's Dead (12:10).
Ceremonia de la Confusion (2020) contains
the chaotic (and a bit childish) freak-out Hermetic Sword Destroying The Sun (8:44),
the terrifying galactic distortion Azufre y Mercurio (10:44)
and especially the ghostly demonic bedlam of Hidden Void (15:25).
The 36-minute EP Maranasati (2020) is another minor appendix to the
major program, with amateurish numbers like
the industrial rock Biological Industries Inc
and the mantra Crapulencia Sagrada framing
the eight-minute rabid wall of sound of La Estulticia de Sofia.
A Blaze in the Southern Sky (2020) contain three pieces:
At the Home of the Order of Melchizedek (16:09),
Divine Harlot's Cosmic Cunt (13:02) and
Sacred Rape (Astral Mix) (16:07).
Vegan Fascism (2020) is devoted to the
43-minute
Nostalgia Pandemica Futurista in three parts (particularly the symphony
and whirling second part).
Las Aventuras de lo Feo (2021) is a 45-song seven-hour compilation of all the recordings from 2007 to 2020.
Schadenfreude (2022), whose title refers to
a common human aberration: taking pleasure in the misfortunes of others,
is a three-part symphony of horror cacophony. The first part in particular
is a tornado of sonic aberrations that evoke a
flushing toilet, banging on metallic pipe, vomiting, the jungle, a furnace burning babies, etc.
Medina was also active as Chimbilaco, as documented on
Abstract Phonk (2022), composed under the influence of drugs, and
Anthropophagic Cowbell (2023).
