“An astral musical journey where inner impulses try to converge with more cosmic ones”
1 The Third Geometry 5:52
2 Santa Luminosa 6:40
3 Spirit Allies 5:47
4 Intrinsic Fluctuations 14:00
5 Subliminal Pulse 5:58
6 Slipped Time 7:29
7 Alchemical Powers 6:29
8 Pulsum Sacrum 7:21
9 Mantram 7:58
(DDL 67:34) (V.F.)
(Ambient New Age)
Argentina's Bruno Sanfilippo has been a musician, sound sculptor and composer for almost 20 years. Influenced by Vangelis, his music floats above our dreams with tender harmonies that wrap around structures that are sometimes abstract, ambient or simply melodic. SUBLIMINAL PULSE is his 12th solo album since his first one in 1991 (Sons of the Light) and his first on the American label Spotted Peccary Music. The artist describes his latest album in these terms; "Sometimes, the poetic language of music reveals what cannot be seen. It shows a reality that has nothing to do with words. With my electronic instruments I take the universe's 'Subliminal Pulse', and I try to build a bridge between my inner pulse and the pulse of the outer space." This is a very nice way to define this very poetic and dreamy album, whose 9 tracks enclose delicate harmonies that move like feathers in space.
The Third Geometry introduces us to Sanfilippo's tender poetic universe with a fine, ethereal synth line that sways from its shimmering chants over a delicate structure animated by a soft mix of percussions and bass-pulses. An amalgam that shapes a soft rhythm with beats that wander in an iridescent synth haze, weaving an unreal eclectic universe both ambient and tribal. A musical world full of mystery with this metallic haze that bewitches on a sparse rhythmic structure and a soft synth with sounds so close to astral chants. The intro of Santa Luminosa is torn by a heavy metallic reverberation before finding the quietude installed by The Third Geometry. A dreamy tranquility with this soft and bewitching astral singing that the synthesist living now in Spain likes to sculpt from his synth. Much like The Third Geometry, the delicate rhythm of percussions and shimmering arpeggios, bouncing among the pulses, is ennobled by layers of synthesizer singing like celestial sirens and violin laments, creating a tribal Middle Eastern universe of a thousand illusions and tender passions. Continuing in the same vein, but with a much more ambient approach, Spirit Allies floods our ears with a sultry melody that bewitches with its laments sculpted in the sounds of a synth with tender poetic leanings. It is a superb title impregnated with a strange serenity, just like in Slipped Time and its piano with solitary notes which pierce a beautiful mellotron mist as well as Pulsum Sacrum and its superb choirs which float around astral bells and synthesized pulsations in the Vangelis. It is very beautiful!
Intrinsic Fluctuations begins with long, slowly oscillating synth blasts. The layers of synthesizer get tangled up to form an oblong procession of mist where the echoes of a curious tribal world can be heard halfway through. Delicate solitary arpeggios shimmer and skip delicately on a glass fauna, amidst misty flute blasts of Berber tribal sounds and choirs of repentant souls walking towards an enchanting world where oases are on the horizon. Filled with mystery, Subliminal Pulse evolves on fine pulses surrounded by dreamy spectral chants. Like in Alchemical Powers, the rhythm is hardly present if not for a delicate fluctuation in the pulsations that beat in a universe buried in subliminal tenderness. Mantram is another delicacy coming from Bruno Sanfilippo's hybrid sounding synths. Between the mournful laments of heartbreaking violin and a mystical morning mist, Mantram unfolds like an ode to sadness or a call of melancholy.
Like Bruno Sanfilippo describes it so well; SUBLIMINAL PULSE is an astral musical journey where inner impulses try to converge with more cosmic ones. On this level SUBLIMINAL PULSE is an opus of infinite tenderness where the astral chants are perfectly molded to the soft ambiences of a world whose tribal fragrances seem to be the key to our spirituality. Like most of the works of the Spotted Peccary Music label, the album sails between celestial ambient and progressive New Age. It is a beautiful night album where the reminiscences of Vangelis are felt here and there, but in structures more honeyed than complex.
Sylvain Lupari (July 6th, 2011) ***¾**
Available at Spotted Peccary Music