Drifting spacey ambient electronica.
Source of Present is a assemblage of six silken, deeply-immersive ambient experiences. Like the pull of an enormous galactic ocean Max Corbacho’s compositions here heave and roll in tranquil immensity, waves and swells of sound shifting, rising, falling in multiple tides. Having the cover art in mind one can’t escape the association between the mesmeric music and the lush colours of the visual imagery – vivid tonal hues bathe the senses in deep saturation, fluid drones and glossy textures luxuriating in endless expanse. Shadows of purple, indigo and mauve seem perfect for this music since there is a gorgeous gloom laying down a constant undertow to the infusions of warmth and soft brightnesses that light the way. Each track fades gently into the next in such a fluid way as to act as an unbroken whole, the relative fleeting nature of the central tracks emphatic and tight whilst embraced by the overarching tenor and traction of the central theme such that their contributions are of equal weight.
Source of Present arrives in a richly-hued card digipack of two panels. Cover art, created by Max Corbacho himself, is intriguingly ambiguous and engrossing: twin bands of crystalline light shaft across the front cover in lustrous diagonals, darkness massing around like an enveloping shroud. Purple depths support lilac and ice-blue highlights, each in constant interplay with the other. The rear cover holds track titles, the inner left panel presents relevant credits and website information; simple, minimal, elegant.
This latest album from Spanish ambient master Max Corbacho delivers a highly refined ambient experience. This is serene, floatation music of a sublime nature – delicate, subtle, serene, carrying the listener afar. Tracks range from the twenty three minute forty four second opener The Beginning of Remembering via three shorter pieces, Transparent Phenomena being the shortest at just less than four and a half minutes, to a pair of epics at the end of nearly nineteen and thirteen minutes respectively. Max Corbacho seems to sink his beautiful sounds in ever greater lustre and sheen – the clarity, vibrance and intensity of Source of Present being top notch.