“Now, here is an opus intensely black and immersive where the tones challenge constantly the ears and which denies not at all Gustavo Jobim's previous works”
1 Tsunami 14:40 2 Atlantis 12:27 Gustavo Jobim Bandcamp
(DDL 27:07) (V.F.) (Dark ambient experimental EM)
EM! The cradle of the experiment! It's the beauty of this art. This capacity that have the artists, the testers, to work with the new thingies which flood regularly the market of the innovation. These craftsmen, those who understand the threads, the connections and the knobs strive to extirpate all the facets and all the secrets of those toys by modulating sounds, by sculpturing rhythms and by embroidering melodies. But let's stay in the cradle of the experiment. Gustavo Jobim is one of the proud descendants of the lineage of the sound experimenters who dare to go there where Conrad Schnitzer, one of his big influences, has often led us to. Composed and played on the Korg Monotron Delay synth, for the title-track, and on the Korg Monotron Duo, for Atlantis, TSUNAMI is already his 16th album and it pursues this passion which devours the Brazilian synthesist for the sound experiments. It's an album intensely black, immersive, where the tones challenge constantly the ears. In brief, an album which denies not at all Gustavo Jobim's previous works, in particular Manifestoand Inverno.
The title-track challenges our ears with some heavy and somber breaths. And challenged is a term which is imperative here. Sculptured in the effects of echoes, distortions and reverberations of the Korg Monotron Delay, Tsunami rumbles, squeaks and amplifies its sonic offerings in a slow waverer movement where the violence is feeding more the imagination, with a fascinating impression of discomfort, of panic and immersion, than a scent of rhythm, even the slightest bit of ambient one. We can easily associate those sounds with winds which roar out, while the elements of panic which emanate of the finale leave no doubt regarding the urgency of the situation. Here it's necessary to see beyond the harmony, because there is not a shade, not a trace, and put ourselves in the ears of the potential victims who hear and see these big waves, who hear these enormous mortal breezes erupted and blown between both ears. Impressive, but that remains a very experimental approach. Atlantis rumbles like a machine. Always so threatening, the intro grumbles with fine jerks in parasitic noises. In reality we feel closer of cosmos here, aboard a mega space shuttle, than in the heart of Atlantis. But that can easily be as well the opposite, so much the sensation to be somewhere else is omnipresent. More musical than Tsunami? I would say less violent and softer in the listening. But that remains a passive symphony for sounds and elements of distortions where Gustavo Jobim seems so comfortable as a dolphin in the ocean.
Sylvain Lupari (January 2nd, 2015) *****
Available at Gustavo Jobim Bandcamp
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