Sonorous sound particles buzz, fizzle and vibrate across the exploratory synthesizer rich-vistas of Davide Tomat‘s concept-bound solo debut. The former songwriter/lyricist with Italian rockers N.A.M.B now drops his christian name as he adopts a more experimental flight plan, with controls set to navigate our own solar-system and some of the key developments in astrological science.
Though attached their titles afterwords, each of the 11-tracks is tagged to an historical – and sometimes personal – event that happened within the time-frame of the first 6-days of June, spread over a 250-year period. Recorded appropriately over the said 6 days, 01-06 June is a pertinent soundtrack that transducer’s its subject matter into a emotively vaporous narrative, fluctuating between serious-toned reflection and orbital awe.
Tomat’s expansive textured layers of white-noise electronica is interlaced with a varied synthesis of aching, drifting and swooning vocals. Similar in a sense to artists like Panda Bear – but much more ominous and brooding – he uses the voice as an instrument itself and corrupts it with countless quirks whilst throwing out the odd faint aural adumbrate lyric.
You may, so far, have noticed from my overtly positive wordy review that I’m quite taken with this LP. And you would be dead right, as it is an impressive cosmic meander. Far from being technically or musically original Tomat warrants praise for unassumingly, and with a fanfare, crafting an effective immersible listening experience, which may in turn prompt the audience into, perhaps, researching further the themes that inspires each track. But this also shouldn’t be taken as a prerequisite: you don’t have to that ‘DonatiComet’ was in fact name-checking the 19th century’s second most ‘brilliant’, and first-ever photographed, comet – in turn named after its discoverer, the Italian astronomer, Giovanni Battista Donati; nor should you be expected to know that the ‘Soyuz’ entitled track is actually alluding to the rockets that were adopted by the Soviets to propel their cosmonaut’s into space, or that ‘Soyuz11’ was the first and only manned-mission to the world’s earliest space-station Salyut 1 – a mission that ended in disaster for the crew whose capsule depressurized during preparations for re-entry (the only human deaths to actually occur in space itself). No, all this is very interesting and even enhancing to the overall experience, yet all you need to really know is that the absorbing efflux of sounds and rasping, flitting, bass-rumbling synths are appealing enough on their own merits; freshly served-up to the uninitiated.
For those seeking escapism, or pursuing an invigorated journey, the slow-burner and relatively undiscovered, 01-06 June is essential. Tomat remains a real ambient composing talent. One of my picks of 2012 so far – a high recommendation from me.
05/03/2012
[Rating:4.5]
http://www.monotremerecords.com/archives/tomat-01-06-june-album-now-streaming-exclusively-on-sentireascoltare-com
