Orbitalis
Day One

While it devours colors, it doesn't want to see the light, it doesn't need it, it just wants to make every bite of hard blue, red, brown, green fond of purple its own, but no yellow, that one just doesn't go down. It grips black with its teeth and steals as many transparencies as it can. It sucks in scents and allows itself a tear with the smell of ice, of night snow. It brushes over the castles, fields, and cries of its century with the back of its hand, seeking the copper and silver anointed by their oxide, testing electricity when it turns blue and crackles on the tongue, regurgitating the fog of time that murders it.

All of this is Orbitalis, in this precise moment I've allowed myself to give psychic voice to my synesthetic side, trying to enter its world. Because it's not possible to tackle "Day One" without relinquishing control of the senses, without using the eye of a child. Trying to box its elements into this or that genre is senseless and impossible. Don't be fooled by the apparent calmness of the sounds: this album screams, and these are desperate, anguished, shaking screams. It would be simplistic to frame it as a soundtrack to justify its colorful contents. In this case, the emotional weight is much more unrestrained, as the search for sounds is freed from imaginative cementations. In any soundtrack, one always starts from the retinal work, upon which the music is then erected according to the stylistic and perceptive structure of the composer. In this case, however, the operation is reversed: we are faced with a lyrically composed work completely freed from both the bonds of a visual base and the chains supporting belonging to a genre, an identifiable archetype in some way. The blind abandonment to the psyche and impulsivity, channeled masterfully through technique and class, are elements found in every track, from the darkest to the seemingly cheeriest.

The album disposes itself to various listening modes, with different results and levels of engagement. It's obvious that a careful and reflective reception is the best way to fully perceive the vital rhythm of the work as a whole, but even passive reception, accompanying the simplest daily acts, like a walk or a tram ride, can grant us delightful fruits.

But now let's try to delve into the depths of the work, while being careful to sketch only some perceptual outlines, usable only as an access key. We are opened the door by the album's eponymous track, "Day One", which immediately informs us of what awaits us, constituting a rather exhaustive summary of the pieces to follow. Industrial frost and electric vibrations deliberately aimed to pierce, palpable fear that does not skimp on melancholy. Already at this point one can see content that will find ample exhibition spaces in the rest of the album: the flow of time according to Orbitalis's perception, seen as a cruel reaper of every beautiful and sweet instant that life occasionally manages to offer us. The obsession with such inevitability, screamed by disharmonic distortions mixed with guttural sounds, is already enough to make us understand the violent charge and energy of the work, without the need to reach paroxysmal tones. With "Anguish" we delve even deeper into the obsession given by the obscene passage of time, abandoning any attempt to build a melody and reaching black ambient results (avoiding, however, the interminable durations typical of such a genre). "Ray of Dark" helps us take a breath from the terror, but it's only a fleeting pause. Contrary to its title, according to my very personal interpretative line, this is the album's only daytime track, as I see the entire work as nocturnal, dark, illuminated only sporadically by artificial yet colorful lights. "Cybernetic Hitch" is a pause in time upon a dark sea studded with stars, a sweet fragment of synthetic sounds that for a moment wants to guide us into the world of dreams. But we're immediately brought back to reality by "Darkness Is Coming"'s martiality, mist that muffles industrial whistles, horror atmosphere brought back to the everyday. "Flies Will Eat Your Brain" is an eloquent title, but in the distance pale rays can be seen... who knows. We then change exposition style with "Why Don't You Let Me Scream", with almost mocking tones, leading to a grotesque tension, another element that can be noted in some following tracks. The awareness of the advancing transience is mocked by rounder, muffled sounds. "Morbid Obsession" elevates the new style found in the previous track, combining it with a certain solemn aura. The effect is achieved thanks to the drum echo, later used in other pieces. "Lullaby" returns to the dream dimension, but this time the pleasantness of fantasy is disturbed by a subtle vein of restlessness that runs throughout the track. The clean atmospheres however grant us a warm caress. "Wake Up Song" is a piece born among the trees. Unlike what we might expect, the awakening described seems gentle, the light rouses us with faint glimmers, leaving us in a soft warmth, surrounded by nature. Big Beat atmosphere from Prodigy with strong Industrial tones for "Shit! It's Late!", an energetic track, the morning coffee that shakes us and brings us back to reality. And at this point, we enter the heart of the album's sweet melancholy. "What's Tomorrow (Part One)" creates an initial whirlpool towards the center of Orbitalis's art. A vertiginous piano melody directed towards electronic sounds and distorted pressures. An indisputably blue piece.

"Can't Stop the Tape" has a sci-fi horror film flavor, a new entry to imagination, in a dreamlike dimension of escape, but without drama, gushing from a chase carried out by cardboard figures. The 43 seconds of "Open Source" make us anxious as we traverse a high-voltage cable in the dark. Return to industrial whistles muffled by a chilling mist with "Far Away, Somewhere", while a melodic siren seems to want to guide us, but in the end, we are betrayed and left in the dark. Undoubtedly one of the scariest tracks on the album. "Forsaken Is My Name" is an ambitious piece because, unlike the vast majority of other tracks, it has a rather considerable length, almost nine minutes. Another element that might complicate its reception is the repetitive melody that runs throughout its entire length. But, excluding the purely technical aspect (the track is extremely complex, as are many others present, but I don't want to shift the analysis to this plane, it would be inappropriate), the final result is an ecstatic enchantment that is hard to escape from. Paradoxically, this is one of the tracks I've listened to the most and it never tires me. Try to get into it and you'll agree with me. But let's move on to the next track which, despite the seemingly ironic title, "Have an Egg", has a certain solemn character, marked by a repeated piano chord that at a certain point leads us to a sensation of detachment, but not traumatic, such that it makes us float in a liquid space, with a slow gravity that gradually separates us from the initial advance. We then resume the path with a tragicomic step in "Just a Moment, It'll Pass", along a path that only wants to make us reflect. It's a small space just for us that's granted, a brief departure from our daily life. Following a brief synthetic-tone dissonance, "The Shift", gives us the last carefree moment before landing on "Together Alone" and the approaching panic, the premonitory dizziness, the anguish of being lost. But perhaps it's possible to imagine one's magnificent castle to save oneself, "With Her", and feel the desire for a passion that one doesn't want to let fade. An anthem brimming with living blood: it isn't always simple to be stabbed to death, no matter how deep the knife may go. "Follow the D" leaves dreams behind but is a good alluring devil that winks at us, captivates us just enough to let ourselves be enveloped in an ecstatic whirlwind of curved waves of different thicknesses, waves that go from electric to water, la mer, in "-24.373974,-128.327406" (I leave to you the pleasure of discovering what's hidden behind this title), rich in sweetness and characterized by discontinuous flows, by peaks and vastly different lengths. In this track, one enters the emotional spontaneity of Orbitalis, almost a form of abstract expressionism configured in music. And then following, "The Devil Inside the Time" brings us back to the image of a cruel Cronus, an enemy of humanity. The beats of a heart mix with the measured rhythm of clocks, with a slow but constant shift between the two, a sign of inconcilability. It's impossible to strike a bargain with a God that doesn't grant remissions, yet three-quarters into the track it almost seems like there's an attempt at rebellion, probably in the awareness though of fighting against windmills. "What's Tomorrow (Part Two)" diverges significantly from its namesake part one, as the speeds become more vertiginous, abandoning previous reflectiveness and inevitably venturing towards loss of control.

The album closes with "Don't Look Inside Me (End Credits)", with a chilling abandonment of all hope. Defeat has come and time can no longer obsess, only emptiness remains and one is left astonished at how much it can hurt. The level of noise mixed with cries rises more and more, reaching a dark ocean of scratches and wounds, now such as to merge into a single indistinguishable mass. Yet at the end, in the infantile regression of laments, a new dimension of peace seems to emerge. After fleeing from everything, a new tranquility begins to coagulate, neither beautiful nor tragic, just simply there and at least, finally, it lets us sit and rest, now exhausted.

The poetics of Orbitalis has acquired a surprising maturity in this album, and there are clear and well-identifiable themes that traverse "Day One" in every direction. Do not underestimate the potential of this work, put away any preconceived notions of style and genre affiliation and dive into a sensory experience that will truly enchant you, believe me.

"Day One," Orbitalis's fifth album, released in March 2012, is available for free download on the website. Visit the site to download this and other albums by the artist.