Tag: Shawn Mativesky

Review: Mativetsky Amiri Pagé – Metamorphose

Take a tabla player (Shawn Mativetsky), a santur player (Amir Amiri), and a harpist (Sarah Pagé), put them in a studio, have them encourage each other with experimentation and love of traditional Sufi, Persian, Indian, and classical music, and what do you get? Metamorphose – one of the loveliest albums of the year.

Opening track “Yavaran” is the only one with lyrics and those are from the Sufi devotional prayer of Yavaran Masem (“My friends, I am drunk.”). Amiri and Pagé’s vocals blend perfectly with the intoxicating sounds all three produce.

The title track hums and pulses like a happy cat stretching in a sunbeam upon waking, or someone who has just had an enlightening experience. Amiri’s santur is beautiful on the track.

“Quarter Tone Suite” is eleven-and-a-half minutes of trance-inducing bliss. Pagé’s harp leads the way, ushering us from our tent in the desert and into an oasis that you don’t remember seeing when you set up the tent the previous night. “Maktrismos” blends Amiri’s santur and Pagé’s harp so well together that you often can’t tell which is which.

Remember that desert oasis from earlier? You’re back in it (or did you ever leave?) on the final track, “Pathos,” which encourages you to let go of what’s troubling you, have a seat, a cup of tea, and just let things happen for almost thirteen minutes.

Again, this is one of the lushest, loveliest records you’ll hear this year. Let it change you.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe.]

[Thanks to Nick at Riparian Media.]

Review: Temporal Waves – self-titled

Classical Indian music mixed with synth-wave? I’m there all day.

Shawn Mativetsky, otherwise known as Temporal Waves, has released his debut self-titled album and it’s a wild mix of those two genres. I don’t know how he does it, but he blends tabla so well with analog synths and drum machines that you’re often not sure where one ends and the other begins.

He also gives any of the tracks on the album ample time to breathe. The opener, “I Remember,” is over six minutes long. It’s a beautiful track that puts you in a different headspace. The whole album does, really. It puts you into a trance one moment, and then sends you rushing to the dance floor the next.

There are four subtle “Interludes” on the album, each one setting the table for the next track, such as “Interlude I – Skyline” being a hazy lead-in to near-creepy “Sprawl Twilight.” “Interlude II – Scorched” is a perfect opening for the next track, “Eclipse of an Urban Dystopia,” just from the titles alone, but the dark, John Carpenter-like tones of both are a good pair.

You could put “Interlude III – Tomorrow Machine” on a horror / sci-fi film soundtrack and “Cortical Network Oscillations” could be the sound of an alien transmission. The build-up of “Cyclotron” is a cool opening to what sounds like a forgotten 1970s TV show theme. “Water Temple” drifts along for the first half and then drops deep synth-bass on you in the second. “Luminous Objects” might be the loveliest song on the album. It seems to make you float.

Mativetsky’s hands and fingers are moving so fast on this tabla on “Data Cassette Sunrise” that you’re often taken out of whatever you’re doing while listening to it to think, “Holy cow…Does he have three hands?” I love how he adds apparent vintage video game sounds on “Awakening.” They blend in perfect with the raga-like hypnotic effects of his playing.

“Warmth of the Winter Sun” is loaded with heavy bass, bright synths, and wicked beats that are positively uplifting before the wind-down of “Postlude” to send us away with new energy.

Keep your mind open.

[Don’t forget to subscribe!]

[Thanks to Nick at Riparian Media!]