Rollin Ballads is classically ambient, a watercolor wash of palpable, agreeable texture beneath which themes emerge and recur, amounting in a graceful, nine-movement suite beautifully composed.
Gastón Arévalo grew up near the harbour in Montevideo. The lasting effect of its maritime air is immediately evident as his debut album Rollin Ballads opens in waves of blue-green synthesizer ebbing and flowing on “Souvenir (Re-Ambiented)” and the bells of “Rollin Ballad I” ring on dockside fishing vessels as they are tossed lightly.
Turning inland, the colonial architecture of the town and the subtropical nature in which it is nestled, teeming with life, seems beheld through a benzodiazepine haze. The air is thick with color in motion and the city’s castellated façade melts into an echoey blur.
Rollin Ballads is classically ambient, a watercolor wash of palpable, agreeable texture beneath which themes emerge and recur, amounting in a graceful, nine-movement suite beautifully composed.
Rollin Ballads is available on Oktaf. [Bandcamp]
