Max Corbacho «Nocturnes II» CD

The beauty of magnificently immersing nocturnal landscapes of Aragón region in northeastern Spain is resurrected once more! Max Corbacho, the Spanish driftscaper par excellence has released the second chapter of «Nocturnes» series during April 2018 through his Silentsun imprint. «Nocturnes II» CD is packaged in an attractive glossy 4-panel digipak, featuring original cover photographs by Max Corbacho with additional layout work by Michael Rodriguez Pletz.

The opening «Celistia» track clocks over 23-minute mark and immediately takes the listener into awe-inspiring vastness, where undisputable, timelessly gliding and ebbing insignias of its sole purveyor meticulously coalesce with balmily glimmering nightly quietudes and inconspicuously permeating faunal symphonies. A journey through grandiosely barren horizons is fully unfolded, Max Corbacho again unlocks the gates to soulfully fascinating terra incognitas. Indeed, an epic listening experience awaits here! Shorter «Nocturnal Bloom» clandestinely soars into even more expansive grandness, a gracefully colossal realms owned by this Spaniard. It’s a pity not even a 4 minutes long ambrosial exploration is gone too fast. But no worries, almost 9-minute «Starlight Grace», as indicated by its title, steals the splendor with all its panoptically prodigious monumentality, free-floating spatial solitariness is exquisitely juxtaposed with surges of titillatingly mindscaping reverberations. Tenaciously monstrous, pure magic!!! «Heart Of The Night» is another rather ephemeral odyssey, yet intensely engrossing, where all hues of organic tapestries persistently amalgamate with voluminously undulating magmatic stratums. «Indigo Sphinxes In Dark Canyon», at 3:10 the shortest venture on the album, tightly keeps breathtaking tension of its predecessor, but an array of ear-bending piquant meridians steals the whole spectacle. I keep on delving deeply into staggeringly perplexing chasmal domains… «Timelapse» returns to relatively calmer terrains, but sonic metamorphosis seems to be unstoppable and surreptitiously nuanced scenario moves into a profoundly delightful monolithic vertex. Then through peaceful diminuendoing closing this spellbindingly transcendental circle. Big applaud, Maestro!!! 20-plus minutes long «Moon Apparition» delicately reveals the genius loci of these arid sceneries, where gracefully meandering panoramas of dronescapes precisely harmonize with genuinely shimmering nocturnal field recordings and transitorily trenchant climaxes. Tranquilly enveloping conclusion!

No matter if entering enthrallingly overwhelming skylines, nebulously extraterrestrial spheres, mysteriously labyrinthine inner zones, spectacularly subaqueous depths or majestically monumental architectural masterpieces, Max Corbacho always delivers the very best of his virtuosic soundcarving, a rewardingly abundant momentum of tremendously sophisticated wizardry in sculpting powerfully transporting opuses. With gem like 70-minute «Nocturnes II», but also with «Source Of Present», «Nocturnes» and most especially with recently released «Horizon Matrix» (out since November 30th, 2018), Max Corbacho is triumphantly chasing quintessential milestones such as «Ars Lucis» and «The Ocean Inside». Once again, bravo, Maestro!!!
Richard Gürtler (Jan 13, 2019, Bratislava, Slovakia)

«Max Corbacho, the spanish artist who lives in Barcelona have been quietly working on a new release named «Nocturnal Emanations». well I can tell after some deep listening what a ‘great’ effort this is. A few years ago he surprised us with his strong debut ‘Vestiges’, followed by the glacial, massive and deep atmospherics on ‘Beyond the Immobile Point’ to the long outstretched simmering waves on ‘The Resonant Memory of Earth’, and now he just came around the corner with new inviting deep explorations which draws us back to what he has called ‘the Earthcall’. Always been fascinated and inspired by books, poetry (referring to the intriging lines in the booklet) and of course the beautiful Catalan landscapes of north Spain which has been also greatly influenced Salvador Dali’s works, he makes tremendously mature/mayor efforts on his 4 releases of which ‘Nocturnal Emanations’ is clearly his biggest leap forward. And I was so fortunate to have the first glimp on this very impressive release.

The opening piece ‘A spark of deity’ witnesses us, surrounded by beautiful and intriging use of field recordings, that something is about to come. Slowly from a far distance, thick swelling underground clouds are getting closer and growing bigger, obviously we just have passed our point of no-return.and the adventure starts. The title piece is bringing us to a safer and more comfortable place but we still have to look back over our shoulder. Slowly a pulsing tribal cyber groove gets through, dusty clouds bright twinkling light streams are reaching us and in the meanwhile the groove gets deeper and more powerful into the sublime space of ‘Abandoned wind’ hovering and floating gently around, a feeling of enlightning is reaching us.

Worth to mention again is Max’ use of (processed) fieldrecording, carefully blended with his atmospheres, contributes a rich openness and freshness -I would say- rarely heard. The 5th piece ‘Along the moonlight rift’ starts right off with a fantastic, incredible deep groove, more and more gliding layers of sound are coming in and set course to a powerful setting, the powerful meets the emotional, I guess a favorite space of many. Here, Max clearly shows what he’s capable of. This piece -like the title already suggests- has really the feeling of walking along a giant moonlit ‘rift’ under a huge clear starry night sky. very visceral indeed. From bright skys we step into a morphing and dusty space where -if we want to- ancient singing winds and erosions can be heard and felt, the rhythm here is slow but very intense, like it’s guiding your bloodflow. Speaking about fractal rhythms patterns, on the 7th piece, an elastic groove seems to dance it’s own way through thick fog banks, playing this one loud is an experience on it’s own. The last and probably my most favorite piece ‘Birthplace of the occult fire’ is leaving us in a place where life floats forever. just beautiful.

It’s obvious that Max has a perfect grasp on his machines and knows very well how to set his tone colours through the various stages. After many listening, still new structures and layers can be heard, the repeat mode is definitely a must here to feel Max’ -deep- shifting rides. Each of his disks has a distinct sound and feeling with strong desire and I feel that ‘Nocturnal Emanations’ is topping that. It has been some time ago that a record had such grip on me. I’m very sure that this disk will appeal to many of us. All I can say is; well, well done Max!»

Beatless and rhythmic ambient zones full of shadow and the lush densities of night. Night sounds, night birds, crickets, low sonic breezes – the album opens with a strongly environmental sound. Gradually dense tonal blankets roll in, gurgling effects and low muted impacts, the stillness now stirred up into a slow winding eddy. The serene twilight pools that Corbacho creates here can be silky and smooth, lustrous surfaces reflecting dark tones – but there are obscure depths too, things heaving below in slow, slow swells. The third track ‘The Slow and Wandering Dust’ sees a soft rolling beat gradually creep in – a corporeal rhythm, natural, constant accompanied by waves of heavy saturated tone like the measured breath of deep sleep. Large pots and giant drum thumps provide the basis for another percussive piece on ‘Abandoned Wind’ – slow motion low, lulling, soporific.

This is a rich, liquid smooth world of dark curling colour, oceanic enormity. Tranquil and languid for the most part, yet uneasy shades well up at times, there are desolate spots, lonely and cold, suggestions of ambiguous lifeforms moving somewhere below or off to one side. The organic rhythms lift some tracks into meandering animation, quickening the stillness – but only just.

Purple-black scenery in a crepuscular gloom fills the front cover, the edges of individual rocks and crags picked out with a graphic grey outline creating a weighty solarisation effect. Vague, monochrome geographical imagery creates backdrops for the other panels – a tracklist on the back complete with track times. Inside the two page booklet is an explanation of the project and a verse from Indian poet Sri Aurobindo that was a chance finding during the creation of the music.

Max Corbacho’s Nocturnal Emanations was released in 2003 and appears on the website as the fourth release by this talented ambient composer. This is seventy three minute duration long form work developed through eight distinct tracks. Promotional material describes the album as one of «transparent synthwashes, developing through silent landscapes». The sound zones established are intended to be «almost hostile, sometimes underground, always stony, ancient». The approach taken was one «without any type of synchronism» so that «in this way the layers of synthesizers move freely along the whole piece «rubbing» harmonically some with others. A compelling composition that very effectively leads the emotions and senses in a beguiling night glide over quiet, abandoned terrain.

Nocturnal Emanations is for lovers of sonic scenery, lovers of low light, lovers of ambiguity. This CD will appeal to ambient fans that enjoy an organic sound and powerful atmosphere.

– How did this collaboration between two musicians that on paper develop, if not antagonistic, at least different styles arise?

Max: Our first personal encounter was through Free Records, label where I edited my first CD Vestiges. When Bruno arrived to Spain they told him there was this crazy man who also made ‘special’ music for their label. We met and, personally, when I heard Bruno’s music and we talked about our passion for it, I knew we were soul mates. In the summer 2002 we made a trip to the south of Spain, to the supernatural and silent Natural Park of Cabo de Gata, in Almeria to be precise.

Bruno: We loved the place with its weird landscapes and all. We took pictures and audio samples of bugs and other curious things. Being marvelled with this place, we decided to create music that reflected how this place made us feel. The result was Indalo. It was an interesting fusion where we both moved away a little from our usual style, and that turned out to be a good thing, even nourishing!

– Listening to the song you include in MDEA vol. 8, under which lines did you decide to work together? Was there any previous planning or it came up improvising?

Max: There had been some improvising sessions and also an exchange of tracks that later on were treated and processed by each in his studio.

Bruno: Yes, both things have happened. I had never worked in this way. You brainstorm the ideas, like ‘splashing a canvas’, until, little by little, the work begins to shape up. When various ideas are presented we choose our next step. The truth is that you have a good time doing it and we enjoy the outcome. We like to think Indalo has elements from both of us

– Each of you are about t release new albums, in both of them you can clearly see an evolution in the sounds. Bruno’s music in Visualia is more and more luminous and environmental (except for the intro in part 5 that connects mysteriously and anthropologically with the Mexican Jorge Reyes or the American Steve Roach for example), while Max’s, in Nocturnal Emanations, deepens more in the cave like and earthly sounds. Lets just say that while Bruno is looking at the sky Max is looking at the depths of the planet and the thickest cosmos. I’d like you to comment, separately, on the motivations and changes in these new works, and insist on the fact of how you joined your strength in the same direction.

Max: I believe that these two works, Visualia and Nocturnal Emanations, are closer than between Bruno’s Suite Patagonia and my The Resonant Memory of Earth. Anyway, notice how in these two we talk about nature as the argumental base of the albums. In the new records, the approach is given by the use of the atmospheres and textures, we both bet closer to the ‘ambient’ concept. It is true that Bruno’s music has a ‘sacred’ component that invites us to look up to the sky –your appreciation seems accurate to me. And my music also tends to be cave like and earthly landscapes. But you should never forget there’s no earth without sky.

Bruno: I agree with Max. Besides, the album Indalo is our musical version of the volcanic atmosphere of Cape Gata and its strange beauty. It is also true that the colour of the sound changed but it is quite possible that every musician composes a work in relation to what he is living at that moment. It also lies in the huge ocean of its own memory. It seems to me that there’s nothing static, even less in our restless minds. As you can see, Max’s sound has evolved too. But anyway, there are artists who like to linger on known places.

– Bruno, Visualia is a very different to Suite Patagonia. The expansive character, almost movie-like, and the musical production of Suite Patagonia turns into a much more introspective record in Visualia, it’s less melodious and much more armonic with a minimalist character.

Bruno: It is pretty clear, basically, Suite Patagonia is more symphonic and poetical. On the other hand, in Viusalia I see the slow swirling ambience, it has other kind of depth. Let me see… I would say it’s an introspective CD, in a way I try to make the music awake those images that are hidden in our memory as if they were unconscious whispers. At least that’s from where I wrote it. But I still don’t know how people is going to react, it’s too new. The work may invite us to move to a timeless inner dimension, promoting the imagination and fantasy, I hope.

– There are great creations in Visualia, Visualia III for example. We are facing a visual, touchable and descriptive music. How do you develop that capacity to describe images, which are different for each listener, with music?

Bruno: Honestly, I’m really happy that you liked the album. Well, at least Visualia III looks like it. Thanks!

Each composition in the album is represented by an image by Janet Parke, an US artist that makes some drawings with very inspiring fractals. We sensed with Janet a very strong aesthetic bond between our works. But as you said, each listener makes his own visual trip. I don’t know how it happens. Of course, every artist is interested in the effect of their work, that his art provokes a certain emotional effect. Visualia contains interwoven pieces of a continual but almost imperceptible transformation. They appear, in different planes, countless sounds of organic texture that may create reminiscences of the earth and its inhabitants. I believe Visualia isn’t hard on the ears but I don’t believe it’s for listening it in the kitchen while you are making macaroons either.

-Max, you’ve always been labelled as the follower of advanced student of Steve Roach. Anyway, throughout your recordings you can clearly see your personal contributions to that sound that evolved form the American space to what it is today. From my point of view, your music is more lyric and organic than the one from the American master. They are very personal and hard to explain details but how would you explain your musical evolution from the arrogant Vestiges up to today?

Max: First of all, I’d like to thank the great American masters like Rich, Roach, etc because they showed to a whole new generation the way to the unexpected moment.

As regards my evolution, you can analyse it basically through two aspects. First, my personal, psychic growing as an individual evolution, and continual discovery of the surrounding world (trips, personal experiences, etc). I think this conditions me extraordinarily, and the growth and enrichment is translated into the music. Secondly, as son of the time I had to live in, technology pushes me to experiment and search for new roads and new frontiers to explore every day. I often have the feeling – I talk about this in Nocturnal Emanations script – that my music shifts as a live organism and, at this point, this evolution points to a greater abstraction, as if the elements of which it was made of at the beginning , as in Vestiges, were dissolving little by little, mixing and flowing really slowly, creating new structures and textures in an eternal mutation.

– Max, where would you say your music stands in a physical plane? In the cosmos, the depths of the earth, half way?

Max: In «Far Beyond the Immobile Point» I tried to recreate the poetical universe in which Umberto Eco situated his pendulum, in the remotest place of cosmos. Up to now that was my only incursion to ‘the space’. Now I stay half way. I’m interested in the earth as the scenery of my music. I have the constant need of escaping from the city and feel that surface. I prefer lonely places where the man doesn’t disturb the silence. Perhaps this is an echo from my early years which took place in a lonely farmhouse in Badajoz province. A place where time goes by slowly, where the view gets lost in the horizon and the word ‘space’ makes sense.

– You both are musicians that have always shown interest in the ethnic and tribal things. Bruno made that pretty clear in the master piece Suite Patagonia. And Max has always incorporated in his sounds chamanic percussion. Up to what point do you feel incorporated to the ethnical musical world?

Max: I’ve always felt an absolute fascination for the ancestral cultures and, of course, by its music. In Vestiges, as a declaration of principles, the first piece, Desolada, already presents those powerful ethnical percussion. I’m still investigating into that kind of music so as to enrich myself with all that wisdom and magic in involves. Now, I’m fascinated with the Bereber music. Recently, I was able to hear it live on a trip to Morocco. I was so impressed by it that I now have a fusion project with some of its elements. Due to the evolving process of evolution I was talking about earlier, that is the dissolution of the basic element that make up my music, also the percussion are more abstract every time. For example, the ones in Nocturnal Emanations are basically tribal grooves that have been conveniently treated so as to acquire a synthetic quality but keeping the root and ethnical character.

Bruno: I’m attracted by the idea of composing incorporating sounds of different cultures. I believe that the purity of its fragrance contributes with a strong emotional content. I also believe that part of its ‘visual’ things in my music has to do with that evoking to the sonorous origin of the man. I also use the timbric of the synthesiser trying to create an ocean of latent images. I’m convinced that the ‘sonoric psico-ambients’, so to name them, will be more developed in the future music.

– Is there something you would like to say apart from all the things I would have liked to ask but I didn’t have time to?

Max & Bruno: We just wanted to thank your interest in our music. Your questions have been interesting and pleasant to answer. I hope we can enjoy, for a long time, your prestigious magazine and its CDs.

Bert Strolenberg, www.sonicimmersion.org

«Nocturnal Emanations is the 4th album of the Spanish ambientcomposer Max Corbacho, which again is worth the long wait. It features typical quiet longform ambient-spacemusic divided in 8 tracks, in which transparent synthwashes slowly develop and desolve. A certain comparison to the current ambient excursions and light drone-textural worlds of his US collegue Steve Roach (again) can’t be denied, but next to that, Corbacho has arranged a beautiful backing with a vast aray of environmental sounds and fx’s, giving the musical painting an almost dense atmosphere. The slow flowing and morphing soundscapes, sometimes accompanied by distinct ambient percussion and sequencertreats (in which a slight high-tech component like Vir Unis is obvious), even gain effect when experienced in the evening or at night when using headphones. Stillness and introspectiveness all make up for over 73 highly atmospheric music, which seems to be the standard for such recordings since a few years.»

Glenn Folkvord / Electronic Shadows

«Nocturnal Emanations is Max Corbacho’s fourth album, a seamless longform work of ambient soundscapes, subtle electronic-tribal rythms, and sampled sounds. While perhaps not the most innovative combination of styles and sounds (many artists create this kind of ambient music) it all comes together in a pleasant mix and with an uplifting spirit. The sampled sounds fit very well with electronic textures, wether they are jungle sounds or more abstract underwater impression.

For those who think that 73 minutes of ambient floating music is too much, there are a handful of tracks with subtle beats and rythms, such as on The slow and wandering dust where electronic sounds (not typical drum or percussion sounds) are sequenced into gentle beat patterns that gives the ambient pads support and a sense of dynamic movement. On Along the moonlit rift the rythm patterns are slightly heavier, probably sampled sounds and processed electronically, but still quite «light» and full of space. But the general feeling of the album is that of far-out ambient space sounds, firmly rooted in electronic territory, without the use of flutes, guitar or wind chimes. The sound quality is excellent too; a professional recording and production.

Nocturnal Emanations falls nicely between Steve Roach’s Early Man and Jean Michel Jarre’s Waiting for Cousteau (the title track) with many details to discover during repeated listening sessions.