Marius-Christian Burcea, Host of «Journeys to the Infinite»

THE RESONANT MEMORY OF EARTH creates a rich atmosphere of sound to be breathed in. Max extend the sounds of natural environment into the space of imagination.The artist don’t try to imitate the environmental soundscape, but rather he produce sound events, textures and phrases that are analogous in richness of possibilities and variety of nuances. Seeking the fullness of horizons to conquer, Corbacho’s vision celebrates the magic mutation of the natural forms.
There is a feeling of time having almost stopped, no need to rush, listen it slowly, like seeing each rock itself and what it has to offer.

Max Corbacho started a solo career in the Ambient scene of the nineties. His amazing music soon attracted a remarkable attention. His albums are full of daring ideas.

 How and when did your interest in music and your vocation as a composer begin?

«I began to get interested in music since I was very young, but it was listening to old records by bands from the 1970’s when I felt the need to create. On the whole, all the artists in that era fascinated me, from the legendary Pink Floyd to the most metallic Led Zeppelyn of their first years. I started in Rock bands as a guitarist… till in the early 1990’s I abandoned everything so as to create electronic music.»

Which is the process you usually follow to create a musical piece?

«I don’t have a definite «method», yet I certainly have experienced an evolution. Nowadays I use the sequencer less than I used to, I intend my themes to become freer with respect to their rhythm and tempo. Right now I divide my time into creating acoustic loops from outdoor recordings and in the studio, and the creation of rhythmic computer-generated grooves, and I then coverall that with layers of synthesizers and it receives the final treatment.»

Do you consider yourself to be linked to a given musical label in particular? Do you feel or have you ever felt influenced by other musicians in your artistic task?

«Certainly, yet I rather feel I am related to a current, rather than to a given label. Obviously, the influence of such musicians as Vidna Obmana, Robert Rich or Steve Roach is undeniable in my work, and therefore I feel quite close to all the American ambient space scenery,as well as its European representation with such people as Alio Die, Mattias Grassow, Amir Baghiri, Temps Perdu, etc.»

Which are your sources for inspiration when composing?

«Basically my travels, outings and excursions to places where I feel myself far from civilization: I was born and spent the early years of my childhood in a small «cortijo», a typical country household, in the province of Badajoz, and later I spent every summer there during the following years. Somehow my subconscious always wants to return to that place, and I continuously look for places far away from noise to spend my free time, to photograph them and somehow capture threir atmosphere.»

Can you comment on what role Umberto Eco’s literature played in your album «Far Beyond The Immobile Point»? What did you want to express in this album?

«It was the first chapter what wholly captivated me. The poetic vision of the universe Eco describes,

and the vision of the pendulum the main character has, as he imagines how strings hold it stretching into infinity, up to a remote place the imagines as the «immobile point», the place where it is anchored, and around which the entire universe revolves, inspired me profoundly.»

What led you to compose «The Resonant Memory of Earth»? Did you propose to create a work related to Earth from the beginning?

«Yes, in «The Resonant…..» I finish some paths I started in «Vestiges», and plan it as an analysis of my feelings, my sensations at the moment of finding myself in some lost place in the midsrt of nature. Actually, it is a question I meditate on, wondering why many people like myself pick this call, poetically referred to as «the resonating memory of Earth·, whereas others never have this need in all of their lives. I also need to contribute somehow to making many people aware as they do not realise the harm they do to the natural environment.»

Tell us about your relationship with Bruno Sanfilippo. Are you planning to release an album together? What do you think of his musical style?

«Bruno and I are preparing a CD together, that’s right. We have connected very well at a personal level, and we have just had a vacation together with our respective wives in the south of Spain. We have the project of giving concerts jointly in the near future and it even is possible that we create our own label. With respect to his musical style, I believe there are several surprises in store for his fans, and some of the traits that were suggested in «Suite Patagonia», such as the taste for ambiences and atmospheric music, are going to get a thoroughly important role in his future works.»

Can you comment something about the projects you are working on and your plans for the immediate future?

«Yes, basically, I am currently working on two new projects , one being on a «techno-tribal» wave, based on rhythms generated via computer, and another maybe somewhat darker, without percussion and in a way following in the wake of «Far Beyond The Immobile Point». Also, there is my collaboration with Bruno Sanfilippo, as well as another two projects, one with Amir Baghiri and the other with Ran Kirlian, a young musician from Valencia who appears to be very promising indeed, having several surprises in store, in the near future.»

Caleb Deupree , Ambient Visions

«Max Corbacho’s new release, Resonant Memory of Earth, should appeal to lovers of slow, quiet, dreamy ambience such as James Johnson’s Entering Twilight and the second disc of Steve Roach’s Dreamtime Return. Although nominally divided into four tracks, Resonant Memory is really a 73-minute opus with no breaks and few overt differences between the separate pieces.

Most of the album is composed of long, sweeping motions, too protean in form to be considered drones. Overtones from single pitches slowly divide and merge into each other, fed by occasional swaths of white noise. There are hints of melodies in Lands of Sacred Silence, and the distant promise of wildlife and morning birdsong in the beautiful long title track that closes the album, but elsewhere we hear gentle shimmering, poised halfway between sleep and waking.

The ambience is still and beatless except for a ten-minute interlude in the title track, where Corbacho introduces a simple rhythm loop of hand drums and seed rattles. Corbacho is a Spanish artist whose previous releases have been highly praised, and which focus on summer nights and nocturnal breezes. With this release, he provides a very spacious sound, layering the sonorities between both channels and with enormous reverberation that gives the listener a peaceful sense of distance.

  Reviewed by Sergio Vilar for Nucleus Magazine

In this opportunity, Nucleus, had the immense pleasure to talk with the Spanish musician Max Corbacho, one of the most interesting and innovative European artists signed up inside the Ambient / Space Rock. Let us know in this I dialogue the ideas, works and projects to a creator’s future whose work deserves to be discovered without more delay.

To begin Max you could give us an express summary of your career for people that doesn’t know you?

Of agreement. I began as so many other youths being interested in the big groups of the 70, and little by little I decided, together with some friends, to mount a band of Rock. My first instrument was the guitar, Spanish and electric. Later, quite later, by the middle of the 90, I began to be interested in the electronic music, especially for the North American scene. I bought a synthesizer and I was fascinated by their power. Starting from then one can say that my current musical stage begins.

Well, do let us speak of your influences who have been directly you the more ones in the musical plane?

In my new electronic stage, my biggest influences are Vidna Obmana, Steve Roach and Robert Rich. Previously they have influenced me mainly the big groups of the 70, mainly the Pink Floyd of the first stage… their videotape «Live at Pompeii» caused me a deep impression. I am also a great admirer of the old music, mainly centuries XVl, XVll and XVlll.

And what is inspired to the moment to compose?

The remote and lonely places, the night, and in general the big spaces. I believe that it could never compose an urban topic. The relationship that exists between my music and the natural means is indivisible. Continually I carry out exits and intent to get rich with the received sensations. I also use the natural means as an it orchestrates more, recording natural sounds and then processing them.

Starting from that elements go developing your music?

I try to look for new roads continually. Now I am experiencing with a form of totally free composition, sometimes aleatory, joining and mixing previously created and manipulated elements.

Which the concepts that contain your disks are?

Well, maybe «Vestiges» and «The Resonant Memory of Earth» shares the same concept. A North American reporter said once my music transported to a place that we all take inside, eternally swept by the wind. I keep that sensation. In «Far Beyond The Immobile Point», the concept was taken out of the first chapter of Umberto Echo’s novel, «The Pendulum of Foucault» whose imagination prolonged the rope that sustains the pendulum until the confines of the universe, in a place that he calls ·»the immobile point».

Since you made reference to your new disk, How sees «The Resonant Memory Of Earth» now, to little of having been published?

Musically, now, after some months, I reconcile with this work again.

When you finish a project you have listened to it thousands of times, and in this point loses the reference a little. I listened to it recently in my friend’s house Bruno Sanfilippo again it, and I feel satisfied of the carried out work. With this disk has wanted to finish some roads undertaken in «Vestiges».

Do I suppose that the visual aspect should play an important part to the moment to present your music on a scenario, not?

At the moment I have not begun with the concerts. It is a pending subject that for luck Bruno Sanfilippo and I are working, and we plan to share it to lean on mutually. Of course the visual aspect wants him to be primordial part of the show. We have several ideas that I wait we can materialize. The generation of images in real time, generated by software starting from the music, is one of my ideas. At the moment, we are collecting images of places visited to manipulate them and that they serve us as base.

Ambient, electronic, experimental… could you give us a definition of your music?

It is always difficult to label a work, sometimes in oneself disk different styles cohabit. but we all know that at the moment to define the style is fundamental in the current market. Basically, «Vestiges» and «The Resonant Memory of Earth» could be framed inside the panorama of the Space music, while «Far Beyond The Immobile Point» goes into in the field of the Ambient.

Going to another topic, How do you see to the current musical scene?

I believe that we attend an explosion of the electronic music of vanguard. They have never had so many unknown artists presenting disks continually. The musical computer science has revolutionized the artistic creation. I only wait that everything this offer belongs together with a great demand, that which I believe that to the long one he will come given by the incorporation of new markets, especially China and the countries of the East.

Previously, when we talked about your musical influences, you made reference to several really innovative creators inside the style. What do you say about the work of artists like Roedelius, Steve Roach, Vidna Obmana or Bruno Sanfilippo? What aspects do they approach you to them?

They are big creators, I believe that right now they move the market. It is so much their force that they go drawing the road continually, at least in the world of the ambient-space.

Bruno Sanfilippo it begins now a new stage, after its establishment in Barcelona. I admire their previous works a lot, in particular I admire their meticulousness, he is extremely a musician retailer. I believe that it will surprise their followers with an evolution of their music. We have a very narrow relationship at personal level, that which will help us a lot in our respective careers.

In that projects are working at the moment?

Well, in several at the same time. I prepare a CD with heaps of electro-tribal percussions, taking advantage of new technologies, that which I want that it serves as base in the future concerts. I also have several CD´s in completely environmental mind, without percussions. And now Bruno Sanfilippo and I will begin to exchange material for a future CD group.

Well Max, we would thank you some words for our I publish by way of closing.

Because to thank to all their interest, I wait that in little time it can present them new works and desire that the audition of my music contributes to the personal growth, and to the diffusion of aspects like the tolerance, the solidarity and the protection of the natural environment. A great greeting to all from Spain.