Exploiting the potential of looping, reverb, processing, and sequencing in his productions, Corbacho sculpts deep soundworlds that radiate and shimmer in largely serene manner, though there are moments where the material assumes a dark and mysterious aspect. Synthesizer-generated waves of crystalline sound overlap, building into resonant, harmonious wholes that often reverberate like some primal force. In meditative fashion, the music unfolds with patient deliberation, Corbacho content to allow the material to blossom like some natural phenomenon rendered at half-speed, and likening its effect to a state of deep slumber isn’t unwarranted. While it is characterized by organic flow, it’s not static: sixteen minutes into «The Beginning of Remembering,» for instance, a noticeable rise in intensity and volume introduces an ominous element of foreboding into its otherwise starry-eyed presentation. As dynamic as that opener is, the subsequent «Soul of the World» and nineteen-minute title setting swell even more dramatically, their epic expanses suggestive of exploding star clusters.

Ambient music’s often characterized as time-suspending and Corbacho’s is no exception, especially when the Spanish electronic artist’s taste runs to long-form immersion. It’s easy to get swept up by his soundscapes, so much so that as the recording plays the immediacy of the physical world with all its distractions and noise falls to the wayside. Is there anything here the ambient aficionado hasn’t heard before? Probably not, to be honest, but if your appetite for deep space ambient is insatiable, Source of Present shouldn’t be overlooked. Corbacho certainly does it as well as anyone.
December 2017

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.

Bert Strolember, Sonicimmersion

After the gentle ambience of his 2008-release «BreathStream», Max Corbacho takes us to ambient heaven with his release «Ars Lucis». Those familiar with his work know what he’s capable of, spending lots of time in his studio sculpturing and harmonizing a continuous flow of expansive textures, which now have ended up in deep, captivating meditative realms. As Max explains, a main theme runs smoothly through all tracks of the album in a subtle way, «spreading mystical, delicate scents through labyrinthine passages ascending and spiralling to the vaults».

The contemplative, dreamy sphere (with a touch of Steve Roach) created by this long form, highly atmospheric music is a welcome counterpoint for nowadays fast and hectic life. The almost 74–minute outcome on “Ars Lucis” is velvet, celestial music that drift along in multiple colours and through subsequent different sonic zones around its beautiful core. This grand and spacious music reaches for expansive worlds of splendour, of which the mood is already set by the great photography of a French cathedral on the cd-cover.

Nice going, Max!

Max Corbacho is back again with a beautiful ambient album that express a deep sense of connection and unity.

Try to breath the gentle sounds floating in the air as if your lungs have thousands of little ears. Allow this fresh energy to enter into your body and mind and keep the stream. Soon the music takes you out of your bonderies, in the luminous space, where is no day, nor night, no form, nor colour.Follow the great breath, step into the temple of dissolution and surrender to the Pure Being. BreathStream album invites us to embrace Immanence and Transcendence, the fullness and the void and to discover a deeper reality through a sublime musical experience that will leave you breathless.