- Gabriele Filippi
- Sep 2021
- 2 min
- 810 views
The stories from the book by David George Haskell, “The Songs of Tree,” are the framework that inspired the Californian artist to paint an emblematic and dreamy 10-track album in which to get lost and find yourself at every listen.
This is the matrix of Horst & Graben, the new album penned by the Californian composer and seasoned mountaineer Fran Dominguez, conceived somewhere between the Electronic and Experimental folds.
But as the signature that distinguishes Forest Robots wants, even in Horst & Graben, the synthetic synthesis finds new cycles, new intentions, precisely in the naturalness, in the vastness, in the fullness-emptiness dualism that we can discover by moving away from a civilization engulfed by concrete.
A sensory richness that we have already tasted in Dominguez’s previous works. Also, in this new album, we find his compositional flair and his ability to extract, synthesize, and rework according to his vision, that richness inherent in contemplating the discoveries made in over 400 ascents and 6,000 miles of x-country river crossing, rock climbing, snow trudging, rock scrambling, and bushwhacking.
And fortunately, Dominguez remains faithful to his path. Although Horst & Graben is inspired by stories taken from a book – therefore a panorama, that of “The Songs of Tree” by David George Haskell, which one might think to be more circumscribed – Forest Robots does not fail to collect ideas, themes, and spring suggestions. Then embedding Folk, Neoclassical, and Drone elements, he channels them into an Ambient flow with a strong Experimental Electronic connotation.
Of course, in line with the artist’s previous works, even Horst & Graben is an album that requires time to be listened to, tasted, then assimilated. Not a frugal listening, this release demands appropriate time brackets: to be dedicated not only to mere listening but to allow the double, triple, sometimes even quadruple layers assembled by the tracks, to take space, body, to expand and allow us to see the whole parable.
This is how Forest Robots refactor the reflection on the stories written by Haskell and use them to vectorize with harmonic and natural synchronism the direction of our sense of spirituality and existentialism.
In a pandemic-ravaged world where it is becoming increasingly difficult to ignore our status as global citizens, amid recursive social unrest, cyclical economic crises, and voids of uncertainty that seem to knowingly undermine our freedoms as human beings, Forest Robots rekindle that indissoluble bond that binds us to the environment that surrounds us, that conditions us, and refocuses the legacy for which we have to work.
Listen now to Horst & Graben, the latest Album by Forest Robots, available in streaming on all major digital platforms. You can find your favorite one via forestrobots.com
<\span>To know more about Forest Robots and his music, find and follow Forest Robots all over the web by checking the links below:
<\span>Released on Elm Records label, the album is available also as a Limited edition Cassette in O-Ring case. Find it on the Elm Records’ Bandcamp.
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- .: Nova MUSIC blog // September 2021