Max Corbacho returns with a long-form disc of his signature lighter-than-air drifts in Ars Lucis.  Corbacho’s constructs float in higher registers, airy choral sounds occasionally lifted by a bass rumble updraft. This is, as the cover art suggests, a soundtrack for watching light filter through stained glass in a sacred space. Notes spiral angelically upwards in a slow dance, gracefully filling the air. There’s a delicate feel to the work here, as though a single touch would shatter it into glistening fragments. Ars Lucis is a disc that truly comes into its own when played as a low-volume loop, and it’s an ideal meditation CD. Although split into seven tracks, it plays as a seamless flow. The music here clearly resonates with Steve Roach’s influence on Corbacho’s style—I hear it in the slow-motion layering, the depth and soft elegance of sound that calls to mind the Quiet Music series. (I also hear hushed memories of Giles Reaves’ Sacred Space.) But influences aside, this is true-to-form Corbacho, with all the gentle beauty he’s exhibited in his past releases. It’s a welcome return from a talented ambient artist.

Morpheus Music & The Mall Magazine

Beatless, minimal ambient air. As if painting with the sonic equivalent of light, Max Corbacho establishes a deep, resonant, anticipatory expanse and fills it with shafts and shards of shifting colour and density. Broad beams and hazes of tone drift in unhurried solemnity, rising heavenward in weightless clouds or massing gradually into translucent omnipresence. The ponderous large-scale undulations of these evolving, spacious atmospheres are illuminated with lustrous glimmers, sparkles and radiances of a more fleeting nature. Ripples and fluctuations that pass through the weight of the air with faster motion. There is a reverential dignity to this music that beautifully captures something of the architecture and luminance of the cover imagery; this graceful lustre, this art of light.

Ars Lucis comes in a jewel case with a two panel insert. Imagery is centred on a series of photographs of the Basilica of St Denis in Paris, France. Elegant grey columns and arches are presented rising like huge plumes of stone supporting luminous stained glass windows. The glowing blue, indigo and violets hues of the tinted panes beam all the brighter amid the starkness of stone. The front cover opens out into a two page panorama where the imagery is allowed to glow without distraction. On the rear cover track titles are set out alongside timings for each piece. The flip side of the insert once more gives much space to the glorious visual impact of the abbey church with information displayed to the left: production details, credits, thanks and website addresses.

Max Corbacho’s ninth album follows the progression into deep, silken ambience set by previous releases Breathstream and The Talisman. The album is released via the ad21 label that Max maintains with kindred spirit Bruno Sanfilippo. Ars Lucis contains seven transcendent compositions that range in length from the eighteen minute seven second conclusion Mirabilis Structura to the two minute fifty one second brevity of Keystone Meditation. In total almost seventy four minutes of sublime melody-free magnificence. If you have enjoyed the direction of Max’s most recent previous albums, then this one will be a joy to you. The Max Corbacho website provides clips to listen to, as does the ad21 website.