Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga (Laredo -Spain-, 1949) studies Fine Arts in Madrid in his youth with several exhibitions and prizes. In the late seventies he starts playing sax and clarinet in various Madrid's Free Jazz formations, such as Orgon (first prize of the Jury at the San Sebastian Jazz Festival, 1981) or José Antonio Galicia Flamenco Jazz.
In 1984 he founds with Markus Breuss, the group Clónicos, one of the most important Spaniard experimental rock groups of the 80's, with whom he records 4 CDs, tours through Spain and Europe (Moers New Jazz Festival, 1991), and receives a prize in Electronic Music (Roland-Rock de Lux).
In 1993, he records "Galvana" with Victor Nubla and Jep Nuix. He has collaborated with musicians such as Malcolm Goldstein, Llorenç Barber, J.A.Galicia, Markus Breuss, Sergi Jordà and many other Spaniard artists.
Since 1993, he lives in Switzerland, where he studies and is guest composer at the electronic music Studio of the Bassel Conservatoire, directed by Thomas Kessler, and frequently performs within the improvised music scene (Wim Zug, Luigi Archetti, Hans Hassler, etc). In 1999, the Swiss National Radio has commissioned him the piece "Bolero para el fin del Milenio" sang by the countertenor Luiz Alves da Silva, for a compilation CD of New European Music.
Also in 1999 is formed The FMOL Trio: Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga (alto sax, bass clarinet and scratch turntables), Cristina Casanova (FMOL) and Sergi Jordà (FMOL and QWERTYCaster guitar). An electronic free improvisation group, which takes its name from the FMOL virtual digital instrument, developed in 1997 by one of its members. Combining the unique sounds (and visualisations) of the FMOL, with Arrizabalaga's power blowing, the trio creates an astonishing free music of difficult classification, with possible links to Eric Dolphy or Alber Ayler, Xenakis electronic works, illbient, japanese noisemakers, New York's No Wave or Miles' Agartha period.

Samuel B. Jr.

• Electronic Works ("IN-AUT en la Frontera" project, Santander, Mini-CD, G3G Records, 1998)
• Electroacoustic Works ("1999 Urbi et Orbe 1666 Millennium" project, Santander, CD, Floc Records, 1999)
• Bolero para el fin del Milenio ("Schweizer Kompositionen Fur Countertenor", CD, Luiz Alves da Silva, Grammont Portrait, 2000)
• Cielo e Infierno (Book-Record "Laboratorio", El Europeo, 2001)

duos:

• Pelayo Arrizabalaga / Victor Nubla: Galvana (CD, Danceteria, 1993)
• Pelayo Fdez. Arrizabalaga / Jan Schacher: Solsticio (Solsticio Música y Poesía" project, Torrelavega, CD, Floc Records, 2000)

with FMOL Trio:

• Live at Metronom (CD, Hazard Records, 2000)

with Clónicos:

• Aspetti Diversi (LP/CD, Linterna, 1985)
• Figuras Españolas (LP, Gasa, 1988)
• Copa De Veneno (CD/LP/cassette, Ed. Cúbicas, 1990)
• Esquizodelia (CD, Triquinoise, 1995)

with Orgon:

• Donostiako XVI Jazz-Aldia (LP, IZ Records, 1981)

with José A. Galicia Sextet:

• Flamenco Jazz (LP, Caskabel Records, 1983)

"Clónicos is the group with the most advanced ideas of all those that have been introduced in the Jazz demonstration of Madrid. In a city with millions of inhabitants, there had to be people making music like that: the constant effort of Pelayo Fernández Arrizabalaga for maintaining the flame of avant garde music alive in Madrid deserves all our support and sympathies." (José Ramón Rubio - EL PAÍS)

"Some drops of scratch, cryptic texts, a pinch of rhythm and blues in the drums and some decidedly (at least this time) contemporary compositions... and they are dance too! in spite of the people did not decide at all. Pelayo made a version of Nocturne Harlem with his alto sax in the line of The Lounge Lizards, alone and behind the stretchers. Suddenly, a Vespa appeared and placed itself near the stage with the lights, indicators and hooter on, being these supposedly related to the cheeky noises of Clónicos. The guy in the Vespa did not even deign to take his helmet off and, when everything seemed to go nowhere, Pelayo put the sax on his back, mounted onto the bike and left the place." (José María García - QUARTICA JAZZ)

"Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga plays the alto sax, the low clarinet and uses, musically, instruments created for other purposes: prepared record players, a power saw or a drill. 'We are musical thieves' says Pelayo, 'we appropiate pieces from Vivaldi, the Nocturne Harlem or from the Adagio of Albinoni and then, we play them in the way we understand them.' Their music is completely modern. With the conjuction of the traditional instruments of pop and rock with the music made by transistors, bells, springs, the kubkaphone -a panel, where, like XXth Century gongs, some traffic signals hung up form- or hub caps, they obtain grandiose and completely post-modern and urban pieces of sensitiveness." (EL PAÍS SEMANAL)

"We listened to a percussin made by traffic signals and toy airplanes, we 'suffered' gigantic fusses; we recognised somebody as a scratcher and even as an apocalyptic rapper... and, who could be, but Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, an unredeeming vanguardist, a stajanovist in the progressism of the capital, a postmodern for whom the wrinkle is not beautiful but historical?" (José Ramón Rubio - EL PAIS)

"Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga is an artist actually. In Clónicos he plays saxophone, clarinet, flute, violin und turntables." (Autside Music from Spain - BAD ALCHEMY)

"Nobody must find strange that Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga is still installed in the artistic insanity and organizes a sui generis exhibition combining painting-and-music-or-music-and-painting, with some groups that walk on the same path as he does: Esplendor Geométrico, El Sueño de Hiparco, Macromassa or Clónicos. To keep on inventing real, true and artistic games instead of impossible, utopic and unforeseeable ones." (Nacho Sáenz de Tejada - EN EL LÍMITE - SANTANDER)

"Pelayo is an exquisite man. His way of life immediately reveals an aristocratic sensitiveness both in his talking and in his behavior. As a man of art, he applies his plastic and musical knowledge to a synestesic talking of always unsuspected common effects. A practical artist, his investigations are not thought for dozing on a drawer or for astonishing hypothetical theorists, but for, right away, jumping onto the acoustic stage and- going beyond the partitures- generating sensations, gestures, collisions and, why not, illuminations. It is all a pleasure to fall under his orbit and listen to his music." (Llorenç Barber - EN LA FRONTERA - SANTANDER)

"From Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga's clarinet, the melodies gushed out and, those, by combining with each other, offered virtous and sonorous fireworks. He kept on exploring his intrument's limitations, showing unknown aspects of the clarinet." (Lauren Burst - ZUG SWITZERLAND - ZUGER PRESSE)

"The Swiss compositions introduced in the last ten years by the contratenor Luis Alves da Silva are surprisingly silent. His voice moves in the piano and pianissimo registers, and the orchestration also emphasises the delicate musical accents in the conpositions of Hans U. Lehmann, Mischa Käser and Jurg Frey. On the contrary, Conrad Steinmanns or the Spanish intermezzo of Pelayo F. Arrizabalaga, with strong and corporous sounds, provide a contrast, without giving up emphasising that fragility." (Suk - ZURICH SWITZERLAND - TAGES-ANZEINER)

Introito al otro lado (excerpt)

PELAYO-NUBLA: Yo triunfé con el café (excerpt)