stellar om source: i see through you

If there is one thing that leaps out from Stellar OM Source's music, it is the sense of a highly active mind at work. There is an indivisible feeling that a real person is behind this dynamic flurry of tones, waves, vibrations and modulations. On I See Through You, the first full Stellar OM Source release since 2015, the spark that first LP piqued the interest of so many listeners is glowing stronger than ever. In the 2010s, Christelle Gualdi carved a name as one of the most essential live electronic musicians around, dazzling dancers and home listeners in kind with her bombastic, acidic hardware jams. Stellar OM Source steps into a comparatively more poppy and playful mode on these four tracks could also throw some. Fundamentally she says, it comes from a similar place, and ends with an enmeshed and positive outcome. "Night Alone" wastes no time in getting the listener up to speed. Is that an LFO sample running through "Night Alone"? Is this a lost Metro Area classic? Is that Stellar OM Source taking a diversion into searching Ibiza-rousing vocal for a moment, or did we imagine that in a heat haze? Where are the kicks? Oh, there they are. How many elements are buried and revived within just over five minutes? It's hard to tell. Before you know it, "Lost Codes" is up and away, keeping pulses racing. A pitter-patter of baby kicks feels like a pre-tremor before a welting electro-Italo lead crashes into play. With fizzing energy, rasping synths and a frisson of danger, fans of Unit Moebius and The Hacker will be doing somersaults of joy. "White Echoes" wastes kicks off the flip side with low gurgles descending briefly like a UFO reverse parking into the spot SOS had vacated. Soon, 303s are twisting like Chinese burns while warm chords offer a salve. The mood maintains on "Wild Palms", the only song on this record not to feature additional mixing work from Peaking Lights' dub-wise sensei Aaron Coyes.