Reynols - 2019 - Minecxio Emanations 1993​-​2018 6xCD

 

Pica Disk – PICA047  1.88GB FLAC

Minecxio Emanations 1993–2018 is less a retrospective than an attempt to map a universe that has always resisted documentation. Reynols has never behaved like a conventional experimental rock group, even by the already elastic standards of underground music. Since emerging in Buenos Aires during the early 1990s, the trio transformed free rock, conceptual art, noise, absurdist performance and spontaneous invention into something that rarely resembled any recognizable genre. The six-CD and DVD collection does not try to simplify that history. Instead, it embraces its contradictions, presenting Reynols as a constantly shifting idea whose recordings document only fragments of a much larger mythology.

For listeners encountering the group for the first time, the box immediately makes one thing clear: there is no single "Reynols sound." One disc explores primitive home recordings that capture the band's earliest attempts to define itself. Another gathers unreleased studio work from the early 2000s, revealing surprisingly focused compositions hidden beneath layers of surrealism. Elsewhere are conceptual actions, impossible collaborations, archival documents and recordings that seem to exist halfway between performance art and accidental discovery. Rather than smoothing these differences into a coherent narrative, the collection allows them to remain productively incompatible.

The earliest recordings possess an energy that feels almost impossible to manufacture. They are rough, unstable and frequently hilarious, but beneath the apparent disorder lies an unusual commitment to collective imagination. Alan Courtis' guitar constantly mutates between psychedelic improvisation, crude noise and fractured melody. Roberto Conlazo provides bass that can anchor the music one moment before abandoning any conventional rhythmic responsibility the next. At the center remains Miguel Tomasín, whose drumming and vocal presence transformed Reynols into something fundamentally different from nearly every other experimental rock group of its era.

Too much discussion of Reynols has focused exclusively on Tomasín's Down syndrome, reducing his role to biography rather than musicianship. Minecxio Emanations quietly corrects that imbalance. Throughout the collection he emerges as the band's conceptual and emotional center. His invented languages, unpredictable rhythms and unwavering commitment to impossible ideas continually reshape the direction of the group. Rather than adapting themselves around him, Courtis and Conlazo built an entire musical universe where Tomasín's imagination became the primary organizing principle.

One of the greatest pleasures of the box lies in hearing Reynols refuse permanence. Every disc proposes another version of the band. The archival recordings from the earliest years remain fiercely lo-fi, preserving cassette hiss, overloaded microphones and rooms that feel almost too small to contain the performances. Instead of treating these qualities as defects requiring restoration, the collection allows them to remain integral parts of the listening experience. The recordings carry physical evidence of their circumstances, reminding the listener that Reynols developed through homemade tapes, tiny editions and informal exchanges long before institutional recognition arrived.

The unreleased albums included here are especially revealing. Rather than unfinished sketches, they sound like complete statements that simply happened to remain unheard. Their appearance decades later expands the band's history instead of merely filling archival gaps. The performances demonstrate how comfortably Reynols could move between extended psychedelic improvisation, minimalist repetition, absurd vocal experiments and moments of surprising melodic beauty without ever feeling inconsistent.

The conceptual pieces occupy another entirely different territory. Reynols has long understood that music can extend beyond the production of sound itself. Performances involving architecture, public spaces, scientific institutions and impossible locations challenge ordinary ideas about where music begins and ends. These recordings are not jokes, though humor remains central to the band's identity. Instead, they ask whether documentation itself becomes part of the artwork. When Reynols "plays" a monument, a building or an institution, the resulting recording functions as evidence of an idea rather than simple acoustic performance.

Equally fascinating are the collaborations. Acid Mothers Temple, Pauline Oliveros, Dr. Socolinsky and others appear throughout the collection, yet Reynols never disappears into these encounters. Collaborators are absorbed into Reynols' peculiar internal logic rather than the reverse. Even musicians with strongly established artistic identities seem willing to enter Tomasín's imaginative universe, allowing the group's methods to reshape the collaboration from within.

Despite the enormous stylistic range, several qualities remain remarkably consistent across the entire collection. First is the complete absence of self-conscious professionalism. Reynols never appears interested in demonstrating technical accomplishment or avant-garde credibility. Every recording carries the excitement of discovery, as though the musicians remain genuinely uncertain what might happen next. Second is the group's remarkable openness to failure. Ideas are pursued because they are curious rather than because they are guaranteed to succeed. Dead ends, awkward transitions and apparent mistakes become productive parts of the music's character.

The accompanying visual material and extensive booklets reinforce this sense that Reynols has always been larger than any individual recording. Posters, photographs, flyers, artwork and essays reveal a parallel history existing alongside the music itself. Rather than functioning as supplementary documentation, these materials become additional performances, extending Reynols' mythology through graphic design, personal memory and underground circulation. The project reportedly took six years to assemble, reflecting the extraordinary breadth of material accumulated across the band's history. Most of the audio had never previously been available, making the collection something closer to an archaeological excavation than a conventional anthology.

What makes Minecxio Emanations so remarkable is its refusal to transform Reynols into a respectable historical artifact. Many archival collections quietly domesticate difficult artists by organizing their work into orderly narratives of development and achievement. This box does the opposite. The deeper one travels into its six discs, the stranger Reynols becomes. Instead of explaining the band, the collection continually expands the mystery. Every answer generates several new questions. Every newly uncovered recording suggests countless others that may never surface.

The sequencing contributes greatly to this effect. The listener moves from primitive tape recordings to polished studio productions, from surreal conceptual actions to ecstatic psychedelic improvisation, from intimate fragments to collaborations with internationally recognized experimental musicians. Yet the transitions never feel abrupt because Reynols' underlying philosophy remains surprisingly stable. Freedom is not presented as stylistic openness but as a willingness to imagine entirely different conditions under which music might exist.

There is also something deeply optimistic running beneath the apparent chaos. Reynols has often embraced absurdity, invented language and impossible concepts, but these gestures rarely carry the detached irony common within conceptual art. Instead, they reflect genuine enthusiasm for collective imagination. Even the most bizarre recordings possess warmth. The group continually invites listeners into its world without demanding complete understanding. Confusion becomes part of the pleasure rather than an obstacle to appreciation.

Looking back across the twenty-five years represented here, Minecxio Emanations demonstrates that Reynols occupies a singular position within experimental music. The band intersects with noise, free improvisation, psychedelic rock, Fluxus, outsider art, conceptual performance and underground tape culture while belonging fully to none of them. Every attempt to categorize Reynols ultimately proves too narrow because the group's identity has always depended upon refusing fixed definitions.

Minecxio Emanations succeeds because it accepts that impossibility. Rather than reducing Reynols to a digestible career overview, it presents a vast archive whose contradictions remain fully intact. The collection rewards curiosity instead of completion. After six discs, ninety minutes of video and hundreds of pages of accompanying material, the listener understands much more about Reynols while simultaneously recognizing how much remains unknowable. That paradox has always been the band's greatest achievement. Instead of constructing a body of work that can eventually be mastered, Reynols created an endlessly expanding world whose boundaries remain permanently out of sight.