Craig Padilla 'Vostok'

Tracklist and MP3s
1. Vostok [Hi-Fi, Lo-Fi]

One long expansive, deep and immersive track! The MP3 doesn't really do the album full justice as it is just a 4 minute snip.

Click to order (select 'Music by Record label' > 'Spotted Peccary')

Press release notes
"Inspired by the mysterious depths of the hidden lake under Antarctica, Vostok is a haunting voyage into an unknown space filled with wonder and awe. Padilla masterfully crafts a subterranean soundworld, transforming electronic instruments into subtle abstract beauty that feels no less organic than inorganic, in this visionary long-form ambient work. Vostok is a place of purity and stillness, of undisturbed existence."

Reviews
We begin with the wind blowing across a bleak landscape. Very deep string sounds are felt as much as heard played slowly to create a very desolate atmosphere. We then get a stunningly beautiful but simple little melodic motif just on the edge of hearing. Its as if the lonesome wind itself is calling. There is a real sense of longing. Electronic textures and colouring are added here and there.

Eventually another melodic motif similar to the first but slightly higher begins to answer. The imagery on the cover and text indicates that a frozen crystalline scene was the inspiration for the music and with this in mind when some faint percussive detail is added it sounds at one moment like the cracking of ice and in the next like someone is chiselling away. Shimmering effects seem like the sun reflecting rays from the bright polar scene. Another simple melody hangs in the air, a little more prominent than the previous ones and is looped to give some sort of focus and structure emphasising the image of light literally dancing / twinkling from its pure white surroundings. The melodic loop starts a very slow fade in the twenty seventh minute, taking another four minutes to disappear completely. Its as if the sun has set behind some distant mountains, the wind picking up again as it does so. The eerie little motifs from earlier make themselves heard again. A sequence starts up three minutes later as does a slow rhythm but both are very understated combining well with the returning melodic loop. Non of these elements are intrusive however the overall feel being rather tranquil.

Each layer of the track is then gradually allowed to disappear until we are just left with a cold sighing breeze. Craig seems to compose music in a number of styles from the relatively dynamic 'Folding Space and Melting Galaxies' to the very floating 'Temporal Suspension'. This album is probably closer to the latter but does have a little more movement. Above all it is very relaxing and extremely beautiful. (DL)

Synth music direct review

The single 51:53 track echoes with the reflective depths of an Antarctic subglacial lake, organically stewing in slowly rippling lows and sonar-like highs which shimmer across the upper regions. Simultaneously vaporous and liquid, musical traces swirl in longform cycles of ebb-and-flow, sometimes even emitting distant rhythmic elements.

Rushing breezes stir chiming note patterns and loonlike tones, buoyed upon the bassy currents as all the previously mentioned activities pile up in separate-yet-connected layers. Percolating thusly for awhile, everything then begins to drift apart and fade in wondrous whispers and rumbles, always underscored by the oceanic rise-and-fall.

Various resurgences seem to be a natural part of this naturalistic environment as its sonic life goes on... deep and chilled, the tidal floes of Vostok will carry you into Craig Padilla's icy-though-hospitable soundworlds. An A- journey.

Ambientrance Review

Click to order (select 'Music by Record label' > 'Spotted Peccary')