Rodrigo Passannanti :: Omnipresence (EC Underground)

The aptly-titled compendium seeks solace in transparent melodic layers, continually engaging its listeners through expansive and cinematic sonic snapshots.

Rodrigo Passannanti’s Omnipresence opens with “Art Without Science,” a subdued ambient-electronic treasure of gentle synths tied to vintage melodic and vocal threads. It’s the mellow, reflective, and gliding ethereal pathways that captures the nature of this release for EC Underground. Going further on this transformative eight-track sojourn, “Planet Of Visions” finds the Italian-born UK resident floating on sine waves with vocoder touches and a surreal vision of sound that’s completely tactile yet warm to the touch.

These are fast-rotating acoustic pulsars that have been frozen in sci-fi time lapses—consider “Elemental” (feat. Jeremy Jones) as a prime example. While “Mémoires Esthétique” gently protects us from the elements with its thinner electrical blanket, “Elemental” draws us into its sparse synthwave spheres, sweeping across the landscape. The aptly-titled compendium seeks solace in transparent melodic layers, continually engaging its listeners through expansive and cinematic sonic snapshots before concluding with the closing track “Comfortably Numb,” a beacon of light for ambient/synth fans in 2024.