Julián Muro - APFUS, VOL. 1 (2026) [Hi-Res]

Tracklist

01. No se está solo
02. Ay
03. Tenías un nombre
04. Si I. Intro
05. Si II. Children's Song
06. Si III. Si
07. Dormir vestidx I. 50 Years Later
08. Dormir vestidx II. A Prayer, a Lullaby
09. Dormir vestidx III. Dormir vestidx

Described by musicologist Esteban Buch (EHESS, Paris) as “one of the most promising Argentine musicians of his generation,” Julián Muro presents APFUS, a two-volume opus co-produced with legendary trumpeter and composer Dave Douglas. This ambitious project, backed by New Music USA’s Creator Development Fund, brings together an exceptional string quintet featuring the Bergamot String Quartet and Ethan Cohn (double bass). It also features collaborations from Pauline Roberts (vibraphone), Rintaro Mikami (percussion), Kulusé Souriant (drums), and Alex Baiz Perry (keyboards). APFUS, VOL. 1 is a joint global release between labels ears&eyes Records (US/World) and Segell Microscopi (Europe).

Julián Muro is a composer, arranger, producer, singer, and poet whose work seeks a language that inhabits the intersection of poetry and music, drawing from both tradition and dissent. Through this exploration, he questions the boundaries between musical genres and traces a poetics that dialogues with his biography as a nomad and naturalist. His singular artistic vision has earned him international recognition, leading him to perform on prestigious stages such as the NN North Sea Jazz Festival 2024, participate in numerous artistic residencies, receive an award from the Tishman Environment and Design Center, and complete a master's degree at Codarts University (Rotterdam). He currently resides in Madrid, supported by a full AIE scholarship for studies in Iberian Peninsula Folklore, consolidating a period of great creative effervescence that includes the recent recording of his fourth studio production, Crazy Science.

APFUS, VOL. 1 (2026) dwells in the subtle intersection of contemporary chamber music, improvisation, and South American roots music. Driven by what he describes as a “tension between his untamed nature and his artistic calling,” Muro left his home in the Argentine Patagonia in 2018 to embark on an itinerant life. After years of European nomadism—where he funded his first recordings by working in mountain cottages in the Alps—his artistic compass led him to the asphalt of New York, earning a full scholarship for the then-brand-new Performer-Composer Master of Music at The New School.

The seed for his most ambitious recording project, APFUS, had been planted years earlier during a residency at the Banff Centre (Canada), where he first collaborated with Dave Douglas. Reunited in New York, and moved by the urgency to transform his life's journey into a tangible sonic testament, Muro presented him with his sketches. Douglas immediately assumed the role of mentor and co-producer.

APFUS, VOL. 1 (2026) presents a chamber ecosystem, while the second installment, slated for 2027, will feature a jazz ensemble with Dave Douglas as a guest artist. Recorded “the old-fashioned way” by engineer Geoff Countryman—live in a single room in New York without acoustic isolation between the instruments—the record achieves an organic and genuine sonority, becoming a triumph of imagination over a scarcity of resources. The meticulous arrangement work, which successfully amalgamates contemporary music with jazz and folklore, received guidance from figures such as Jacob Garchik, one of the primary arrangers for the Kronos Quartet, and Emilio Solla, a Latin Grammy winner known for his unique treatment of tango and jazz in a Big Band format.

The soundscape of APFUS, VOL. 1 is influenced by the work of artists such as Nathalie Joachim, Caroline Shaw, Björk, Ballaké Sissoko and Toumani Diabaté, Silvia Pérez Cruz, Joni Mitchell, Astor Piazzolla, Milton Nascimento, Caetano Veloso, Chico Buarque, and more. Muro’s pursuit aims at songs that can exist outside the mainstream, utilizing a language that inhabits the intersection of poetry and music, nourished by both tradition and dissent. Through this exploration, Muro interrogates the boundaries between musical genres, with lyrics exploring themes ranging from childhood, love, and nature, to social and ecological protest.

The result is a work where contemporary chamber music, tango, jazz, and Argentine folklore converse. All of this is interwoven with a poetry that at times draws from the Beat Generation and traditional Argentine chants and coplas, and at others, from universal literary echoes—by now untraceable in Julián's repertoire—that recall figures like Giuseppe Ungaretti, Fernando Pessoa, Edgar Bayley, Juan Manuel Inchauspe, Emily Dickinson, Juan Carlos Bustriazo Ortiz, Carl Sandburg, Gary Snyder, and the haiku tradition.