An intimate sonic journey through the turbulent calm.
Confession Act
I must confess that the recent piece by sound artist and music teacher Lorenzo Gómez Oviedo took me completely by surprise. It was not just a pleasant discovery but a profound experience that resonated in unexpected ways.
I have listened to it countless times on different devices—my usual audio setup, while working, with high-quality headphones, and even with cheap, unreliable ones. Each playback felt like a different journey, a unique voyage through sound and space.
And that’s where it hit me: the piece is a journey—a flight through the air. Maybe it’s the moment I’m going through, or the fleeting associations that happen when listening to sound art, but I couldn’t help but picture myself soaring.
Takeoff
The piece takes about two minutes to fully unfold, gradually introducing instruments—primarily keyboards and subtle arrangements—creating an ambient atmosphere. As the rhythmic improvisation of a drum set emerges, it takes control of the sonic landscape, pushing the keyboards into a supportive, almost compensatory role.
Suddenly, the percussion becomes the turbine of this aerial journey—the propeller of a helicopter or the roaring engine of a fast aircraft. If it were just an ambient flight, it would remain static, a placid drift through soft textures. But this is turbulence—velocity and force distilled into sound.
In the Air
At this point, the drum set dominates, its beats embodying the raw energy of an engine at full throttle. We feel ourselves on the verge of losing balance, caught in a sonic current that pulls and twists with urgency.
As the climax approaches in the final minute, the piece seems to pause—a fleeting silence that hints at an imminent landing, or at least a moment of stabilized flight. It leaves us hanging, wondering if the dialogue with silence is just beginning or if the piece is whispering that there is more to come after the sound fades away.
We recommend listening to it here.