Tomas Gueglio. Soap Madrigals

Soap Madrigals is comprised of 41 short fragments, some spanning as little as three seconds. These fragments are grouped into three movements of roughly three minutes each. The texture of Soap Madrigals is nocturnal and fragile. It is designed, fundamentally, in two layers: a melody that hockets between the six singers and an ornamental layer that colors and embellishes the hocketing melody. The source of the text for Soap Madrigals is a translation into English of five tangos from an old Argentine melodrama entitled Cita en la Frontera (1940). These tangos (as many tangos do) deal with issues such as loss, displacement, and the impossibility of love. By splicing and rearranging their lyrics through a collage-type technique, I set out to highlight the lamenting nature of the original songs. The result is a sequence of sorrowful stanzas that somehow resembles the Italian madrigalist tradition circa 1600. Soap Madrigals was written for ekmeles and is dedicated to my parents, Monica and Guillermo, in loving memory.

Recorded at Tiny Panther Studios. December 2024

Recording engineer: Charles Mueller

Mixing and Mastering: Dan Nichols