MAX CORBACHO[Max Corbacho has been creating Ambient Atmospheric – Electronic Music for over two decades, combining spiraling, synth-driven drifting harmonies with breathing, timeless soundscapes.][Ambient Atmospheric – Electronic Music - Soundscapes - Space Music]

SOURCE OF PRESENT – review by Synth&Sequences

max — Wed, 27 Dec 2017 00:00:00 +0000

Aficionados of quiet and relaxing EM, at your wallets! Max Corbacho’s name was no stranger to me to have seen it on diverse compilations and on Ron Boots’ weekly E-news. If my eyes knew, my ears not! And very often I told myself; one day I got to try it. This day arrived when the Spanish synthesist contacted me to offer me his latest opus, his 17th I believe, «Source of Present». First analysis; a very quiet album! Like a heap of clouds in a sky drained of its energy, the music here moves with this vision that we have of these big cosmic vessels which are trapped in a dense effect of gravity.
An ascent of hummings begins my discovery of «Source of Present». Long of its 24 minutes, «The Beginning of Remembering» establishes an immense wall in height where try to climb some small translucent strands and thin lines of voices. Here, the details are important in this work for music lovers of cosmic atmospheres. A good set of earphones is as much important as a good 3D glasses for a movie, otherwise we miss the nuances in the slow, because the heavy wall moves, evolution of «The Beginning of Remembering», like these translucent effects which shine here and there. We can also talk about these stars which whistle around the 8th minute or still these hollow breezes which sleep around the 14 minutes. Elements among so many others which are grafted at the immovability of this wall to measure well its decoration and which also give a more interesting tint to this immense sound vessel which continues its ascent towards the path of the highest stars. «Soul of the World» is in the same vein but is clearly more intense with effects of loops and reverberations which give a very sibylline aspect to the slow travel of the music. «Echoing Shade» is more relaxing, more ethereal. It’s this kind of music which suits very well a contemplation of the sky the arms behind the head while listening to the breathing of our lover. We even find these resounding effects towards its finale, just to remind us the black and cosmic roots of «Source of Present». This title and «Transparent Phenomena» bring us to another level because the title-track continues our journey in the country of contemplation with an astral ascent which reminds me, especially at the level of the voices’ layers, of the very ethereal universe from Michael Stearns. Wide bands of synth waves are wrapping the blackness just with just what it needs in order to let filter thin incandescent cracks. Moreover, it’s these small bright cracks which decorate this nuance between the cosmic and the esotericism of this fiercely ambient work from Max Corbacho. So rich as dense, heavy and slow, the soundscape in «Source of Present» goes adrift between the universes of Steve Roach and of Michel Huygen. We can hear spiritual jingles hang onto the fall of layers while that from time to times we hear sharpened nails scrape on these impregnable walls of sound. Very rooted in its ambient cocoon, the music proposes a good duel between the cosmic darkness and these weak lights coming from distant stars. «On this Journey» ends this last opus of the Spanish sculptor of ambiences with a music so calm and intense as in «Soul of the World», effects of loops and of and reverberations in less. For music lovers of astral atmospheres who like disconnecting when the masses of sounds are heavy, rich and compact.
Sylvain Lupari (November 30th, 2017)

THE TALISMAN – review by Matt Howarth

max — Tue, 09 Jan 2007 00:00:00 +0000

Matt Howarth. SONIC CURIOSITY

This release from 2006 offers 72 minutes of calming ambience. Expansive tonalities conspire with dramatic electronics to generate lavish soundscapes linking abstract realms with human ambitions. Textures flow seamlessly, ascending to untold altitudes while simultaneously burrowing deep into the listener’s cerebellum. Ponderous tones swirl and coalesce while delicate embellishments waft through this sonic medium. Tenuous sounds gurgle softly in the distance, approaching to loom overhead as they evoke moody sedation.

Swaying from lobe to lobe, the harmonic streams connect instinct and deduction, blurring the distinctions between these ruminations with fragile structures of drifting resonance. Contemplation is urged into being, rousing cognitive associations between outer physicality and inner reflection.

While generally harmonic in nature, this music does possess a hint of melodic substance which remains meticulously just beyond clear perception, inciting the listener to reach past their peripheral hearing and discover an external psychic territory. This extraneous region is seasoned by luxurious electronic effects of subtle definition which suitably flavor the harmonic flow without interfering with the tuneage’s overall soothing efficacy.

Minimal substantiality adopts a greater proportion as the textural currents produce an infinite panorama of pensive disposition. Introspective passages are drenched with shrewdly crafted ambience that stimulates cellular memory, filling the listener’s mind with vast potential.

This music achieves a lofty presence very much in the vein of Steve Roach’s tranquil compositions.

MOONTRIBE / Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire

max — Mon, 23 Aug 2004 00:00:00 +0000

Bill Binkelman, Wind and Wire

Max Corbacho’s Moontribe is a heady collection of ethno-cyber-ambient rhythmic soundscapes that makes my blood race even while its darker elements cause the hairs on the back of my neck to stand up!

Hauntingly beautiful yet also shadowy and foreboding, the propulsive combination of ethnic beats with fractal and skitch rhythms on the opening “Suntribe” are buoyed by flowing washes of synthesizers. Obviously, comparisons can be made to either tribal or groove-oriented Roach recordings, but one could just as easily compare parts of this to psychetropic’s china radio sunshine. However, this is neither imitative nor derivative. The echoed booming effects that open “Out of Nothing” yield to kinetic fractal beats wedded to sensual primal rhythms (faint rainstick and rattle sounds surface now and then) along with a slurping sense of viscosity later in the track.

On the song “Distant Dwellings” the pulsing rhythms are unique, as least to my ears, consisting of bassy pulses and metallic skritches, which when mixed with ethereal high-pitched synths and low dronish chorales results in an imaginative propulsive trip across an alien landscape, teeming with a cybernetic lifestream coursing underneath you as you glide overhead. By the song’s end, though, the rhythms are gone, replaced by nocturnal sound effects and a flowing series of drones and washes. “Unknown Radiance” is a relatively rhythmless song, consisting of echoed animalistic sounds, heard as if from within a cave, along with deep slow washes of EM/spacemusic analog keyboards. “Across the Spectrum” returns the album to frenetic fractal/skitch beats as these are folded in slowly over the patient spacemusic textures. The beats eventually become pronounced and even oppressive (purposely), intermixed by what sounds like exhalations from an exhausted runner. The album concludes with the opus-length (nearly twenty minutes) title song, a slow excursion into dark soundscapes, a la Robert Rich from A Troubled Resting Place, although with a heavy dose of primal rhythms at its start, courtesy of more processed percussion on stone, stick, and hand drums. Percussion is deeply echoed and panned, so this song (if not the whole CD) would benefit from being played in a quiet dark room on a superb sound system. Most of this last track contains drifting mixtures of tones, drones, sounds, and alien effects in a miasma that both comforts the listener (somehow, Corbacho has instilled a sense of warmth in the music) and also creates a vague feeling of uneasiness. It all winds down slowly (maybe too slowly, as your patience may start to wear thin, although to the artist’s credit, he keeps things interesting even as the assorted elements evaporate one by one).

I’m sure people who have digested all of Steve Roach’s, vidnaObmana’s, and Robert Rich’s recordings could hear more similarities than I did on Moontribe, but I found the CD to be more than individualistic enough to keep me interested and entertained. I especially liked the blend of different percussion, beats, and rhythms that Corbacho used throughout the recording. Engineering is excellent, as mentioned above. For my money, while not as compelling as Terra Ambient’s The Gate, this album certainly deserves a spot on the same shelf. If darkly tinted ethno-tribal ambient, with some deep cosmos spacemusic thrown in for good measure, is your thing, Moontribe should prove to be a good purchase.

Bill Binkelman

WIND and WIRE

http://www.windandwire.com