RAMÓN LÓPEZ
40 Springs in Paris
Review
27
November, 2025
By: Khagan Aslanov
Photos: Artist’s concession
Review: 40 Springs In Paris (RogueArt, 2025). Ramon Lopez, drums.
Even to the attuned experimental ear, a solo drum album is an unsure undertaking. Seamless technique aside, truth is, without a personal touch and command of atmosphere and instinct, a single instrument can never be an end in and of itself. For every masterpiece of the niche, like Max Roach’s Drums Unlimited, Art Blakey’s Orgy in Rhythm or Tatsuya Nakatani’s Confirmed, there are dozens of recordings that exhibit skill without soul, expertly composed work that does little to show how versatile and sustaining percussion can be.
Who better then to handle such a precarious undertaking than Ramón López, the revered Spanish percussionist, whose free improvisation treatment of Songs of the Spanish Civil War remains one of the most commanding and devastating musical statements of the 21st century.
No stranger to solo drum records, for many years, López’ omnivorous playing habits have served as a powerful catalyst between the Spanish tradition, American avant-jazz, Indian tabla, free improvisation and a distinctly European school of experimentalism. With 40 Springs in Paris, he distills all of this compounded knowledge into a stunning tribute to the city, and the life he began there in 1985.
López’ compositions were always pictorial exhibitions, serving just as potently as purely musical ventures as imagistic allegories. But there is something even deeper at play on 40 Springs. It’s an account of his own personal history, of four decades of a relentless creative pursuit, in a city that nourished his craft and served as his home.
40 Springs was recorded in a single spontaneous two-hour session, though one would hardly be able to tell. There is a completeness to this assemblage of tracks, a resolute statement of precision and avant-garde risk-taking. In essence, it is exactly what a solo record should be – an artist in profound ritual with their instrument, an unshakeable harmony. It almost feels like the listener is intruding by hearing it.
López’ presentation of a drum solo isn’t contained to its literal meaning of exhibiting technique (though he demonstrates that with gusto and style regardless). Rather, these starkly poignant, painterly pieces function like impressionistic miniatures of texture and mood. Devoid of chord changes, the narrative arc is maintained almost purely through variations in density. It’s an intoxicating proposition, pulled off perfectly with a staggering level of restraint and skill.
On opener “The Sound of Heart and Medals,” he uses bowing to induce an exquisite tension that hangs in the ear long after the piece fades out.
“The Sun that Awakens the Mountains” seems to mirror the movement of water, a back-and-forth showing of effortless and stormy transitions – brush-stick cross-fades and crescendoing press rolls shifting into open hits, as precise and daunting as a wave set crashing into a coastline.
“Climbing,” the de facto centerpiece of the record, builds patiently, then implodes into a rubato freefall.
And on closer “Sixty-five Tolbiac Street,” he creates a pulsing curtain of low dynamics, all brush and finger-work.
Through the thick of all these overlapping phrases and polyrhythms, López transforms a single kit into a kinetic orchestra, and 40 Springs, a percussive masterwork, shows that even decades down the line, he still resides in the midst of a beatific exploration.
