In his latest release entitled Σociend, Greek composer Onepointwo delivers a long and sustained synthesizer-laden odyssey that will no doubt please audiences looking for a modern take on kosmiche music.
Repetition as a psychedelic device for composition
In his latest release entitled Σociend, Greek composer Onepointwo delivers a long and sustained synthesizer-laden odyssey that will no doubt please audiences looking for a modern take on kosmiche music.
Filled with rich if often pretty traditional sounds, the album demonstrates Onepointwo’s love for repetition as a psychedelic device for composition in order to induce in the listener a strange meditative state—some would even say trance-like. Tracks build up sometimes from the simple repetition of one note, like in the eleven-minute long “Foto,” where a bass patch with subtle variations in filter cutoff provides an even and rhythmical basis on top of which pads and later drums are added as the song develops.
The pieces presented here often feature a central motif or sequence, with more than half of them over the 6-minute mark, and do bring to mind the likes of Tangerine Dream and Klaus Schulze, with a much broader range of sound sources—analog, digital, drums, Onepointwo weaves in his music different eras of music technology, which also feature in the writing. While the sequences churn along, the drum programming is often deliberately not rhythmical and seems to serve more as a way to disorient the listener’s expectation of timekeeping. This ambition is pretty explicit in the tracks entitled “Timeless Fluid Vision” and its immediate companion, “Time Denature,” where the comfort of the exactly-placed sequence is complicated by different timing relationships, almost reminiscent of a progressive rock ethos.
A long and rich record which is sure to please fans of nostalgia and more modern ears alike.
Σociend is available on Miracle Pond. [Bandcamp]
