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Synthesist Craig Padilla and guitarist Marvin Allen are dreaming a different dream than most Spacemusic philosophers. Throughout the collaboration Toward the Horizon (64'52") we may hear that which is lighting so brightly inside their heads. As messages fly, ideas flower and synapses snap through the web of electrical circuits across the brain, each mind comes to life in collective play. As so much is riding in every composition, this duo's sound becomes emotionally all-encompassing. Along its six track route Toward the Horizon grows gradually wider and more personal, until this work has thoroughly expanded into our listening space. Small at first, each piece initially feels narrowly contained, but soon rushes passionately wider. In tightly controlled performance this music thickens, to convey the joy of living, but also shades of solitude and doubt. We hear Allen's strummed chords climbing slowly above Padilla's warm electronics, as steely echoing guitar plays against the pulse of gentle sequencer patterns. Dark tumultuous textures act as contrast against this album's drifting strings, reverberant synths and buzzing synthetic chords. But further in, a rumbling soundmass advances beneath glissando guitar lines and grainy sweeping pads; while further out, slow flow zones oscillate in swarms of glittering points. On the horizon Padilla and Allen can see the future approaching, knowing that somewhere in this distance shines a better day. Toward the Horizon is an album by men of deep mind, two who use music to renew their sense of wonder - and play us into someplace just short of the hereafter, but far beyond tomorrow.
- Chuck van Zyl/STAR'S END 4 July 2019 |
