Explorations of the Unconscious

46° Album

First release with Reverse Alignment label of Raffaele Pezzella

I’ve been wanting to make an album like this for some time, the sound searches for pure drones, introspective textures, absent from time and space, recall when I was looking for these sounds with my first synthesizer (Korg M1), around 1993, obviously since then I hope to have made some evolution.

The biggest evolution has certainly been the experience during many productions, this will be the 48th, but over the years I have also enriched my instrumentation, and since 2014 I have started assembling my modular synthesizer.

These sounds come above all from this instrument, research but also spontaneity, a free flow of introspective energy, textures that try to make me enter a cathartic, meditative mood, at times light, suspended, floating, at other times, abysmal, material, dark and restless, as in the track “Il Pozzo delle Anime” (Well of Souls), a vortex of pareidolia similar to plaintive voices, is the deepest ego that writhes from its obsessions, paranoias, conditionings.

The first and fourth track make a clear reference to some psycho-active substances, more romantically called entheogens, it is a story almost as old as man, to the point that some cultures have developed behind some of these substances, even becoming sacred for some cults, transforming the perception of reality and hypothesizing structures of other dimensions.

The deception of the senses has always been one of my favorite themes, an impudent art that seeks by all means to make people understand that man interfaces with the world only and thanks to his sense organs, but if these organs were altered ? like a radio picking up other frequencies, maybe we could broaden our consciousness?

Difficult topics but also thanks to music I love to deal with.

jarguna

Track

01 Dark Meanders of the Inner Cosmos

02 Vortex of Souls

03 Psylocibe

04 Mescalina

05 Acetylcholines Interrupted

06 Magnetic Sleeps

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Album mention and reviews link:

https://kmxtfreeform.blogspot.com/2023/04/02-may-2023-jethro-tull-daniel-biro.html

Other review from:

AMN Reviews: jarguna – Explorations of the Unconscious (2023; Reverse Alignment)

At last count, Italian synthesist and sound artist jarguna (Marco Billi) has nearly 50 albums released over the last 20 years. His music tends toward the organic ambient, neither too dark nor too experimental. Explorations of the Unconscious, his first release on Reverse Alignment, both sticks with this mold and breaks it to some extent.

The sounds consist of deep drones and gently roiling synth, with repeating patterns and oscillations of various frequencies. Throughout there is a dense, analog feel that contributes to the aforementioned organic nature. Another effect of these tracks is their tendency to be hypnogogic or subtly psychedelic. Indeed, several are named after psychoactive agents and implicitly ask whether the use of these substances merely distorts the senses or allows one to receive sensory information that is otherwise unavailable.

To support these notions, jarguna employs airy passages, slow motifs that bounce around the frequency spectrum, and glissando progressions. Low-end tones are gritty, textural, and accompanied by burbling synth. When sped up, these elements result in percussion-like patterns of beats.

Put together, these musical structures result in a pleasant listen that straddles the edge of avant-garde. Explorations of the Unconscious is a great place to start with the jarguna discography, as well as a compelling listen on its own.