Ricardo Donoso’s releases have been as uncompromising as they have adventurous. We’ve been hooked since his 2011 Digitalis LP ‘Progress Chance‘ which contained an arpeggio masterclass of beautiful percussion free trance.
Donoso’s overall sound, however, is as unnerving as it is attractive, with each release feeling progressively darker and experimental. This is particularly true when it comes to his last two albums on Denovali where we find foreboding drone offset against brutalist sound design and tense orchestration with track titles such as “Mutual Assured Destruction” and “War of Attrition“.
Within all of this there are punctures of positive light that hark back to the melodic hues of “Progress Chance” – “Dance of Attunement” on 2015’s Machine to Machine is as beautiful as they come for example. Yet it’s this push / pull of “light and dark, hope versus despair, past and future” that defines Donoso’s work as so arrestingly interesting – a schizophrenic film score, perhaps, of what it is to be human.
‘Calibrate’ is Donoso’s third album for Denovali and finds the producer in characteristically diverse and ferocious form, mangling experimental noise and pounding distorted techno into a sound that will undoubtedly cause havoc live.
Yet, true to form, Donoso can’t help but sneak in some utter melodic beauty – some of which we are delighted to premiere here with “In Search For Lost Time”.
‘Calibrate’ is scheduled for release 30th November 2018 via Denovali, order a copy from Bandcamp.
TRACKLIST
1. Rendering The Ineffable
2. Metonymy
3. In Search of Lost Time
4. A Tour of a Virtual City
5. Disconnected Visions
6. Inimical
7. A Vigorous Unfolding
Discover more about Denovali Records and Ricardo Donoso on Inverted Audio.