Sonologyst - Interdimensional [Cold Spring - 2022]Raffaele Pezzella's Sonologyst project returns with a fascinating, dark ambient look at the far-off future of mankind. Based on Michio Kaku's theories about our species at the end of matter, space, and time, Interdimensional explores the outer reaches of the mind and soul, and wonderfully mixes the grim and unknown with the hopeful and exciting. Composed with a fog or fuzziness of the unknown future, Pezzella quickly captures this scrying glass style of storytelling, and keeps the listener engaged and imagining throughout. From the opening fade-in of "Ad Astra," one can quickly feel what Interdimensional has in store, not only in speed of growth/build, but tone. As mentioned above, there is a slight but deliberate fog or fuzz that coats many of the layers on the album, and this tiny bit of sonic obfuscation greatly impacts the listener's perspective. Looking into the very far distant future isn't going to be crisp and clear, there are billions of factors at play and infinitely more possible outcomes. With this wide of a scope involved, Pezzella manages to include the biggest component, but would most often be overlooked - blank space. The large stretches of the future human experience would be uneventful, Sonologyst compresses these empty, uneventful periods into calmer, engaging drones. This is an extremely smart way to express evolutionary downtime but keep the listener questioning and investigating.
The scope of Interdimensional is very vast, and Pezzella not only embraces this huge idea, but is able to convey both the sparseness and the heaviness involved. For as much patient waiting and evolution is present, there is an equal amount of building, technology, understanding, and exploration. And this exploration is not always physical; it would also be with consciousness, altered reality, and, as the title suggests, interdimensionality. The differences in sonic approaches required are well handled and wonderfully integrated, presenting the listener with a complete and smooth look at one possible future, while still allowing for variances into the infinite possibilities Paul Casey
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