DARVO MACHINÆ

Álvaro Domene's work is music's future rendered in the present. The first installment of DARVO Machinæ, the New York-by-way-of-Madrid composer's newest work of guitar innovation, is all the artist's paths converging into one album. In a way, it's like a lifelong explorer unveiling the full map of their travels, showing how yesterday's experiences can guide tomorrow's. What immediately stands out about DARVO Machinæ is not its aural adventurousness, but how Domene eases the listener into its unique language. "Spectral Cartographies," with its skittering IDM beats and fuzzy click & cuts atmospherics, is the album's Rosetta Stone, building fluency slowly. By the time Domene starts soloing with the fluidity of a musical notation of Brownian motion, and the beats take off with breakcore intensity, you already have the whole picture. This understanding makes the music even more bracing, in the same way that background know-how enlivens sporting events, or an expanded vocabulary enriches conversations. And Domene is in a dialogue with the listener. "Paradoxical Ledger"'s opening runs seem to call to you, inviting you to join them. It's a fantastic example of a composition that doesn't treat its listener like a dolt, forgoing the typical signposts and show-and-tell in favor of something far subtler, like taking a hand and trusting their lead. If you do, you'll end up in a fascinatingly distinct sonic meadow, looking up at the incoming aurora borealis ambient wash. Darvo Machinæ will take you somewhere stunning if you are willing to go there. However, DARVO Machinæ also has an open-ended duality. While looking at "Paradoxical Ledger"'s streaks across the sky, the ever-present beats, beeps, and glitches stake out their space. Meanings abound. Perhaps it's that parts of us are living in different worlds, the microscopic and macroscopic, and while we most readily perceive the big things, the little things are always there. No matter the read, you can relate. You’ve felt it. DARVO Machinæ is a music empath in that way, because it can soak up whatever is on your mind. Like all music worth its salt, Darvo Machinæ is you. It makes the case that your journey is as important as its own. And what a journey. When "Coded Rituals of the Margins" comes around, DARVO Machinæ's 10-minute behemoth, you've already graduated from a crash course of Domene's quantum guitaring. You're no longer experiencing the music from the outside; you're now an inhabitant of the world DARVO Machinæ has terraformed. But, of course, you are not alone. Domene is right there beside you. That's the quality that sets these songs apart from other avant-garde efforts. They are not avant-hard; they're so very human. Although Domene works at the edges of what music can be, his output aims for where your heart resides. That’s the present, in all senses. — Ian Chainey