Sergio Ch. Premieres “Lirium” Video from New Album Koi
Amid a slew of others in the works, recent and forthcoming, across an ever-increasing range of projects, Buenos Aires-based experimentalist/heavy songwriter Sergio Chotsourian — aka Sergio Ch. — released his latest solo full-length, Koi (review here), in June through his own South American Sludge imprint. The album came out at the end of June, and already to coincide Chotsourian has produced five videos for its songs, with the gravelly “Lirium” — premiering below — as the sixth. To say the guy is in a productive period is to put it mildly, but over the last five or six years, that’s just kind of how it’s become for the former Los Natas frontman, whose work in Ararat, Soldati, with the label, and on his own has made him a staple and a figurehead of the Argentine and greater South American underground.
If you can keep up with his work, congratulations. I do my best in that regard, but after 25 years since the first Los Natas record, Chotsourian sets perhaps a more ambitious pace than ever. The clip for the closing track from Koi, a cover of Nine Inch Nails‘ “Hurt” featuring his daughter, Isabel Ch., came out just a couple weeks ago — his son Rafael features at the end of the prior song, “El Gran Chapparal,” as well; no video yet — and “Lirium” follows in a kind of visual meditation that’s fitting for the track’s descending piano line and throaty vocal, a folkish feel but richly atmospheric with backing drones adding an ethereal presence. That piano line is different when you actually listen, but it takes me back earliest Ararat, and I remember it being striking when 2009’s Musica de la Resistencia (review here) showed up with “Dos Horses,” so strikingly different from what would turn out to be the last Los Natas album, Nuevo Orden de la Libertad (review here), despite arriving just a couple months later and sharing different interpretations of its songs.
Perhaps that’s emblematic of the ongoing creative conversation Chotsourian is having across with work with the various sides of his own process. He’s done plenty piano/synth/etc. since, of course, and songs show up on one solo record, then find their way morphed onto another, or redone as a Soldati or Ararat track, or wherever the whim suits. That lack of predictability makes his output more exciting to hear — again, for those who might be able to keep up — but it’s just as much the restlessness that is his own as well as any particular sonic element or interpretive method. The expressive need.
You’ll find “Lirium” premiering below. I’ve also included “Hurt” and the Bandcamp stream of Koi, for good measure.
Enjoy:
Sergio Ch., “Lirium” official video premiere
VIDEO OFICIAL DEL DISCO DE SERGIO CH. – “KOI”
PRODUCIDO POR SERGIO CH.
VIDEO REALIZADO POR SERGIO CH.
isabel & Sergio Ch., “Hurt” (Nine Inch Nails cover) official video
Sergio Ch., Koi (2021)
South American Sludge Records on Bandcamp
Tags: Argentina, Buenos Aires, Koi, Sergio Ch, Sergio Ch Koi, South American Sludge Records
