Henrique Vaz — De Silenti Natura

Henrique Vaz' De Silenti Natura is an ambient soundscape album with a freeform style similar to Italian artists like Alio Die or Aglaia, though Henrique himself is Brazilian.  Rather than use sequenced chord progressions from a synthesizer like the German school would, this is a glimmering, undulating collage of field recordings, shifting air, incidental resonance tones and harmonics, and other difficult-to-identify sounds, which occasionally seems to cohere into something melodic before dissipating again.  With patches of light and shade, it is like observing a cloud movement overhead, which parts on occasion to create moments of stunning brightness.

Reading the liner notes, I realize that apparently novel synthesis techniques are being used to algorithmically create all of these sounds from scratch, and that none of them are actually field recordings.  This is a stunning realization, as the kind of complex shifting and deep modulation heard in these textures is so refined as to suggest a natural source, sounding like a collection of layered improvisations containing natural forces such as wind, and each featuring small moments of percussive contact, sensations of movement, and sounds which could be insects or other forms of life.

This is a masterfully simulated biological environment of an alien nature, and some of the most stunningly vivid and original sound design I've ever heard in my life.  This recording hints at an entirely new era of generative synthesis, and Henrique is to be commended for making it strange, novel and deep and yet also somehow pleasing to the ear; smooth, soft and liquid.  The sounds of the 'waterphone synthesis' (as per the liner notes) in the second piece seem like the next natural step after granular synthesis, resonant tonal beads that form in irregular droplets, sketching ghostly chords.

The release is over quickly, with only two pieces roughly ten minutes each, but is deeply replayable, with a pleasantly soothing energy and a great detail of depth to unpack.  It seems Vaz' past releases are sporadic, so here's hoping we get a solid full-length of this sound from him at some point, and that others take up these methods.