Pablo's Eye

Pablo's Eye was the Australian duo of Axel Liebert and Thierry Royo. Barcelona (Celsius Blanco, 1991) and the EP Devotions (1993) collected brief vignettes of ethnic/jazzy ambient music. The wedding of Brian Eno, David Sylvian and Miles Davis was better implemented with the 21 surreal essays of You Love Chinese Food (Extreme, 1995). The first group of pieces revels in the abstract, ranging from shapeless electronic nebulae (A Boiling Life) to collages in which samples and electronics are indistinguishable (A Pagan Use, a "lengthy" track for them, at four minutes). Opina and Austin Texas seamlessly blend languid electronic soundscapes, manipulated voices and syncopated beats. They are littered with female monologues, and at least one works: Les Larmes de Tigre, accompanied by ethnic chanting, guitar notes, flute and electronic drones. The second group of pieces approaches a more conventional song format, with louder production and prominent dance rhythms (Absolute, Gone By Night and especially the six-minute Brazilian dance Amb 7). The monologues, though, are no substitute for singing, despite The Wedding Girl that is high-brow enough to be part of a Robert Ashley opera. The third group of pieces boasts a Loisaida Dub that totally deconstructs dub music, the looping claustrophobia of To Catch a Tone, the hallucinating voices of Across The Grass, the electrical discharge of A Last Confession. An impressive number of impressive ideas are left unfinished, barely sketched in one-minute tracks. Read more on Last.fm. User-contributed text is available under the Creative Commons By-SA License; additional terms may apply.