Koraal - La Casa del Volàn

artwork Koraal

Eight years after his last piece FIN the Catalan Muisican, Oriol Riverola aka John Talabot, comes back to the scene with a new album ‘La Casa del Volan’ under a novel pseudonym: Koraal. The concept album was produced during a mere three-nights in the Spanish village La Vegueta on the island of Lanzarote with the support of Rotterdam-based label Nous’klaer Audio in November 2019. It then got published in February 2020.

With La Casa Del Volàn Koraal takes you on a journey through the spectacular nature of Lanzarote. Koraal transferred the things he saw and experienced on the island into sounds and created an incredible atmosphere: By listening to his music, you are out into the unique position to be able to retrace what he had seen: its fertile biodiversity of ferns, wild olive and pine trees, its remarkably shaped landscape formed through past volcanic eruptions of craters, caves and huge black volcanic rocks; all surrounded by the vividity of the sea.

All of Koraals’ tracks come along with a mystical and dark shade alongside fascinating ambient elements. However, the main component that attracts one’s attention immediately, is the amount of spaciousness he managed to build into the tracks making the music extremely lifelike and arguably close to the experienced (however in an abstract way).

 Oriol Rivera produced all tracks in chronological order, hence the tracks build onto each other and follow a recurring theme with the sound variations steadily increasing: For instance, La Casa del Volàn 4 focuses on a slow-tempo drumming sequence full of echo and gloominess. The follow up, La Casa del Volàn 5, takes on the same atmosphere and transfers it into a more dark and cosmic mood by inserting dubby and screechy sounds.

The LP reaches is summit with La Casa del Volàn 8: various layers of tribal sounds and dubby ambient elements are combined here, resulting in an energetic sound. The finale “La Casa del Volàn 9” is once more a showcase for a perfect Dub Ambient track that comes across as if walking through dark and perilous caves.

Overall, Koraal’s albums showed and astonished me in how inspiring nature can be for a musician and how accurately the sensual experiences of it are transmitted through music to bring us close to the canary environment.

Listen to La Casa del Volcàn on Spotify: