gaston arevalo: rollin ballads

The Uruguay-born Gastón Arévalo presents his debut CD Rollin Ballads via Oktaf Records. His fascination with natural and urban surroundings developed as a result of growing up close to the harbor of Montevideo, Uruguay's capital, being surrounded by the city on the one hand and old architecture, fishermen, boats and the sea and subtropical nature on the other. His earliest acoustic childhood impressions and associations from these surroundings are still his most vivid -- for example, the sounds of the textile factory, which used to be his father's workplace. His latest recordings are intensely inspired by natural and organic sounds. Tracks like "Selvagem" are the result of field recordings of long walks at sun-down mixed with the unconventional sounds of natural elements such as stones and bones. The result is a synaesthetic impression of foggy, far away landscapes, yet still flooded with light, which is what Arévalo intends with his aurally and visually-stunning tracks. "Souvenir," "Rollin Ballad I," and "Geographia II" allow the listener to lose himself in the neverending repetitions evoking those images. Classically-trained, Arévalo intersperses analog sounds into his tracks as he incorporates modulated and modified fragments and passages played by instruments, evoking the musical influence of classic ambient-sound connoisseurs such as Brian Eno, Terry Riley, Arvo Pärt, and Erik Satie. As a multidisciplinary artist with a focus on experimental ambient music, this record is based on neo-classical sound collages and modulated and synthesized field recordings rife with hidden melodies and abstract sound structures. This is music that presents mirror images of life -- always moving and constantly changing.