Luis Vasquez : A Body Of Errors

Luis Vasquez uses art to express his creativity, but also his internal world. With his long-running project The Soft Moon, Vasquez uses post-punk angst and darkwave doom and gloom to paint us jagged visions of the human experience. If that sounds like a drag, it’s not. Musically Vasquez builds pulsating soundscapes, pop industrial rhythms with flanged bass lines and foreboding electronics, all interspersed throughout his records with his own raw and riveting lyrics that feel like journal entries and primal screams.

Vasquez is a singer/songwriter, but he’s also a producer, studio wizard, and sonic world creator. The Soft Moon records are equal parts vocal songs and instrumental, giving the vibe that albums like Zeros, Deeper, and Criminal are both soundtrack and score to the emotional upheavals in Vasquez’ life.

For his first release under his own name, Vasquez turns in an instrumental album of epic and harrowing proportions. Being just as much jagged ambient and industrial noise record, A Body Of Errors is another deeply personal and engaging musical work that gives us yet another look into Luis Vasquez’ creative sound world.

Here’s the official synopsis of A Body Of Errors:

With this album, Vasquez felt the urgency to break away from The Soft Moon realm and deliver an even more intimate, self-reflecting body of work, while further unveiling inner demons & vulnerability. He continues to explore his notorious angst and visceral pain, but places them in the context of his own physical being, creating the deeply personal, yet relatable and compelling oddity that is ‘A Body Of Errors’, which Vasquez describes as a collection of themes to living in the human body.

There’s a real intensity on this record. A soundtrack to the breaking down of the human body isn’t going to be a walk in the park, but Vasquez does it in an engaging and visceral way. Something like “Interno”, which opens the record, has the drive of a dark science fiction theme. Synths, guitars, and a techno pulse act as fuel for the narrative here. It’s all-encompassing. “Poison Mouth” opens with Vasquez’ breathing oscillated into a robotic refrain. Musically it’s like Godflesh and Throbbing Gristle morphing into some ecstatic sonic beast. Luis Vasquez lays on the dark synth vibes pretty thick here, building doom and dread like some nightmare Great Wall. “Surgery” has an electro funk feel to it, bringing to mind early Reznor, but with Vasquez’ unique bag of sonic tricks added. “No Longer Human” has a mournful, melancholy tone to it, giving way to the frenetic percussion-heavy “Decomposition(Part 2)”. Vasquez has always layered his albums in tasteful and visceral percussion, and here it locks in perfectly.

Over the course of 14 tracks, Luis Vasquez builds a world of menacing beauty on A Body Of Errors. It all builds to the climactic finale of “World On Fire”, a sort of grand sonic goodbye. Despite the title, it’s a kind of calm letting go of the mortal coil.

What is going on here with A Body Of Errors? The breaking down of the human body being a vision of our overall breaking down as a society? Or just a metaphor for death? The great thing about largely instrumental albums is that we the listener can interpret it any way we want. We retrofit it into our own psyches and lives and lock into the world of the record how our brains see fit. Luis Vasquez has made it a point the last ten years to give completely of himself in his music. Whether it be in the music he creates that we put in our brains, or the performance art he creates in his videos or live experiences, Vasquez is all raw nerve and pained heart.

A Body Of Errors is an aural painting of pain and beauty, ready for the gallery wall or the funeral pyre.

8.3 out of 10

‘A Body Of Errors’ is available now. Buy it here.