ABSIS – Live at Alpenglühen [red edge, 2023-01-08]
When we go to our music library and search through the different works, we find some that are easy to read, that are immediately accessible, and others with greater density and depth, that we enjoy for their more challenging scope, or simply because they are often longer. “Live in Alpenglühen” succeeds to bring both conditions in one release…
In charge: ABSIS, who is first and foremost a well-established deep techno DJ from Barcelona, having experienced emblematic festivals such as Paral-lel and Mostra (for which he is also confirmed for the April 2023 edition).
As a producer, ABSIS is also a veteran known under various aliases, having evolved mainly in the Spanish scene over more than two decades. He reached our atmospheric and ritualistic techno shores mainly through some contributions to representative VAs, through his rich solo EPs “Found Ritual” on Hivern Discs and “All The Moments” on Oslated. ABSIS cultivated over the years a certain know-how on electronic music production, which he generously shares on his YouTube channel.
In the present release, he brings us a readaptation of the beautiful stream he did for Monument, in collaboration with F-on from Alpenglühen:
The album comes hand in hand with the birth of “Red Edge”, another Spanish project, seemingly also dedicated to contemplative journeys.
The title of the opener establishes a temporary journey back to childhood, revisiting the school one more time, now as mere spectators of children’s games and laughter. Nobody can really see our time traveller, hidden between his blurred pads and the mist generated by the reverberation, but as visitors, we see the pupils, running through the school’s corridors and classrooms.
The day has only just begun, as indicated by the second track. Every corner through which we gently slide hides stories that we thought were forgotten. From the third track, more sensations of past events emerge and see the light, in a purification process driven by divine angelic voices.
The “shaman of the house” in the fourth track is perhaps the teacher, who connects the listeners together and transmits ancestral knowledge, while the tribal drums arise in the children’s minds.
Field recordings of birds and nature take shape in the sonic panorama, creating calm and serenity until the enigmatic gradual darkening of the fifth track…
“Knowledge has power,” says Peter Drucker, pioneer of entrepreneurship, and this power is hard to obtain, eventually scary to miss while “climbing the stairs” of the fifth track. However, Einstein is felt in the sixth one, dreamy and chaotic, reminding that “the true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination”…
While we are reordering and assimilating what has been witnessed and learned, the last track invites “the children living inside of us” to return back home, at least where it is warm and safe…
WRITING BY: DAMIÁN CONDE FIGUEIRAL | 23 JANUARY 2023
