Murcof

Mexican-born Fernando Corona works chiefly as Murcof, shaping spectral pieces that merge classical traditions, minimal techno, ambient drones, free improvisation, and further idioms. Martes, his 2002 debut album, merged the holy minimalism of Arvo Pärt and Henryk Górecki with glitchy, microscopic beats. On subsequent projects such as 2008’s The Versailles Sessions he set aside techno elements to emphasize collaborations with live players, and he has also recorded or performed with Talvin Singh, Erik Truffaz, Philippe Petit, and additional artists. The Alias Sessions, Murcof’s expansive 2021 album, assembled every signature trait of the project, ranging from sparse, eerie ambience to minutely detailed beats.

Born in Tijuana near the United States border, Corona studied English in San Diego and later settled in the coastal city of Ensenada. His introduction to electronic music came through recordings by Jean-Michel Jarre, Isao Tomita, and Jorge Reyes; at age fifteen he purchased his first keyboard. Toward the close of the 1980s he began frequenting Tijuana clubs devoted to industrial, synth pop, and acid house, and with friends he briefly formed the group Vortex. He also played in the band Sonios, which shifted from indie pop toward an experimental direction shaped by prog rock and fusion. In the mid-1990s he took part in experimental endeavors strongly influenced by twentieth-century composers such as Xenakis and Ligeti, while beginning to produce electro-acoustic music that digitally processed classical samples and applied feedback effects. In 1998 he launched the solo project Terrestre, which combined glitchy electronics with samples drawn from tambora, danzón, and salsa records. He joined the Nortec Collective and contributed to its 2001 release The Tijuana Sessions, Vol. 1, which earned worldwide acclaim.

While still active as Terrestre, Corona initiated the Murcof project. In contrast to the Nortec Collective’s playful, club-oriented output, his earliest Murcof recordings presented precise, glitchy beats alongside manipulated samples of compositions by Morton Feldman and Arvo Pärt. The 2002 debut EP Monotónu appeared on Sutekh’s Context label. After departing Nortec he co-founded Static Discos and issued the full-length Martes, which Leaf released internationally. Utopía, the 2004 album, gathered remixes by Deathprod, Fax, and Colleen together with both sides of the preceding year’s Ulysses 12" and further material. Following the Terrestre album Secondary Inspection, Corona created the Murcof album Remembranza as a response to his mother’s death. Replacing samples with recordings of classical instruments, the album proved more intricate than his earlier, more minimalist work.

Corona relocated to Barcelona in 2006, the same year he began performing in a trio alongside tabla player Talvin Singh and trumpeter Erik Truffaz. Murcof’s dark ambient album Cosmos, influenced by Ligeti, emerged in 2007. Departing from the sequence of album titles that followed successive letters of his moniker, he released Mexico (with Truffaz) and The Versailles Sessions, a collection of pieces commissioned for an installation and performed on Baroque instruments. His soundtrack for the film La Sangre Iluminada appeared in 2009. He remixed Powerplant’s recording of Gabriel Prokofiev’s Import/Export and performed at festivals including Berlin Atonal and Denovali Swingfest.

Murcof’s collaboration with Philippe Petit, First Chapter, was issued in 2013. He joined Truffaz again for the 2014 album Being Human Being and supplied the soundtrack for another film, Patrick Bernatchez’s Lost in Time. With pianist Vanessa Wagner he recorded Statea, featuring works by John Cage, Aphex Twin, Erik Satie, and others. Infiné released the album in 2016 along with three EPs of remixes. Murcof reappeared in 2021 with The Alias Sessions, which incorporated material composed for dance performances by the Geneva-based company Alias.