The second of the week’s OtherSide releases is Craig Padilla and his The Pulse of Life, which you can see at https://othersideaudio.bandcamp.com/album/the-pulse-of-life
Padilla is an electronic music artist who has released music over the years with guitarist Marvin Allen veering into Pink Floyd territory and some of the guitar-based recordings of Edgar Froese. Indeed, it is a certainty that fans of Tangerine Dream will get a huge amount of pleasure from the soundscapes created by Padilla.
There are five tracks of hand and ear played modular sequencer music performed on the Mattson Modular synthesizer, and three of them are epics, including one at uber-epic length, so plenty to get our teeth stuck into.
Riding the Cosmic Rails starts us off, with almost eighteen minutes of music. I have embedded this below for you, and I think that you will agree with me that from the off, it sounds lush, mesmerising in its electronic psych, and I close my eyes and imagine myself sailing across said cosmos, alone with merely my thoughts and the sounds the universe makes, some dreamy, others pulsing, at times recreating the navigational or communication systems reaching out certainly in the final third, and never anything less than fascinating and definitely best heard on quality headphones.
Stardust Harmonies is the shortest track at precisely eight minutes, so itself hardly a slouch in terms of duration. It is a dreamy journey through a nebula, the birthplace of stars, and I love the pretty note sequences which underpin the larger chords above. An interesting combination of cinematic soundscape and harmonies, the final minute seems to float following sone insistent sequencing.
Reflections is our second epic at just shy of the thirteen-minute mark. It begins in a quietly symphonic manner, to these ears taking influence from some of the classic Vangelis playbook, and it is moving in its understated manner. This piece is, I think, perfect for listening to when sitting up, late at night, peat-infused scotch whiskey in hand, not ready to face one’s dreams, but thinking upon the passage of time, total silence aside from the waves of chords and notes hitting you.
Particles in Radiance is the penultimate piece. I have embedded it below for you to enjoy. The delicate nature of the opening bars is instantly apparent, and there is a brightness wholly commensurate with the title of the song, a deep sound you can immerse yourself in channelling the atoms colliding and brightening the void.
The title track closes the album and is a massive epic over twenty-one minutes long. Immediately, the throbbing of the pulse enters your consciousness, “bom bom” in your head, the notes above it also beating before the state turns into a hypnotic trance, not a million miles away from the type of stuff you hear in the Dance Tent, or Village, in Glastonbury, albeit at a more relaxed pace than the likes of Orbital et al. As the track progresses, the layers are added, and it draws you into its world, extremely hypnotic, the sequencer whirling round and round in your head. The closing notes have a choral impact upon you before you are left with the pulse beckoning you to rest.
The Pulse of Life is a worthy addition to this interesting label’s canon, and you can, incidentally, buy a very reasonably priced CD in a 6-panel DVD-style digipack.