Listening reveals dramatic battles and storms hidden in the peaceful realms of the cosmos. Craig Padilla and Marvin Allen create ambient space music under the Spotted Peccary label. Their action often comes in a beat-driven progression and climax leaning towards space rock, which is present on all of their previous albums. In their new outing, the overall feeling is definitely more energizing than meditative.
Unfolding Skies is a continuation of the themes developed in the first three electronic music albums, and is the fourth chapter exploring the many sonic environments encountered by the Umbrella People on their journey, represented in the album artwork. The sound is more in line with progressive rock than ambient, featuring melodic electronic space rock music with only a few excursions into the famous ambient extended cosmic free-form floating interludes.
Craig Padilla has been with Spotted Peccary since 2002, a prolific synth composer and improvisor who is very skilled at taking the listener on many rewarding journeys. Electric guitar wizard Marvin Allen is also a fully committed lifetime musician, singer-songwriter, strummer and picker who teaches guitar: many of his other recorded works are mainly lyrical and feature acoustic or wooden guitars. Northern California is home to both artists.
The music was recorded using Craig’s SSL BiG SiX mixer to get that wide and full-bodied sound. The Akai MPC Live was the main unit that connected to all of his other synthesizers. Mastering engineer Howard Givens is their “third Beatle,” and he succeeded in taking the sound of the album to a special place.
What stands out about this new album is a more straight-forward approach with Marvin’s guitar work, incorporating more of his actual performance without the use of additional overdubs, the energetic sound is untethered, more guitar-driven and not quite as ambient as their earlier collabs.
Opening mysteriously with satellites and pianos, which eventually builds into a good strong electronic gallop, “Framework” (12:03) releases the elemental cosmic forces, the electric guitar is caressing the sky with many colors of fire. I might hear the sound of giants engaging in combat, and colorful knights riding into battle, while dragons and other dangerous large creatures are taking interest. Marvin’s guitar work on this makes this first song soar! Marvin dedicates “Framework” to Robin Trower and all the wonderful friends he made on the Robin Trower fan page.
Continuing the feeling of this spacerock journey, “Undercurrents of Change” (5:28) easily delivers lots of changes and returns us to the calm void riding along an endless horizon with some soaring open stretches, before turning an unexpected corner and the guitar lights up and takes us ever higher. We continue traveling into the “Sun Portal” (5:58), the guitar guides the way as strange things leak out of the portal, resolving as a triumphant procession. The darkness melts and the day begins taking form with an easy riding beat. How about a secret sauce of Robin Trower and Jean Michael Jarre, and early Terje Rypdal vibes.
“Jammin’ with Buddha” is a slow cosmic blues meditation, and is the first single released from Unfolding Skies, bringing that sky scorching guitar and a pre-1975 Berlin-school/Krautrock sound. The time machine whirls us along, “Cosmic Blueprint” (8:38) starts dark and deep as it slowly climbs into glory, this place is really big. There is room for all the strings gliding together with rushing winds and the sounds from opening portals, the guitar reaches into the void while somehow staying calm in the center, which gets stronger and more dramatic towards the end of the track.
Melodic circles start slowly, the excitement builds gradually, inch worms measure the distances until the big guitar breakout opens up more new territories, the beat kicks in with the screaming lead guitar, “Architects of Time” (5:37) develops into the rocker of the album, the Stratocaster takes the top center while the synths hold up the whole sky.
The closing track becomes a complicated operatic climax that starts with a few swirling snowflakes and builds into new worlds, “Unfolding Skies” (13:20) is the title track, where melodic dancers set off to capture the horizon. There is lots of room for fireflies flickering, dragons drawing patterns up above, all coming together in a large tapestry, the guitar takes on more power building the fire.
Craig and Marvin’s first album, Toward The Horizon, melds sky scorching guitar supported by diversified synthesizer mountains, and was released in 2019, followed in 2021 by Strange Gravity, exploring wilder textures and intricate pieces that somehow fit together creating a powerful cosmic groove. Then came Weathering the Storm, which featured everything at once, with some dramatic field recordings of an actual deluge, and was unleashed in 2023. Unfolding Skies brings an emphasis on the guitar and live interaction between the musicians, there is less of an emphasis on post-production craft and more about the chemistry during the recorded jam sessions.
Unfolding Skies can be listened to on your preferred platform: https://orcd.co/unfolding-skies
Spotted Peccary Music: https://spottedpeccary.com/shop/unfolding-skies/
Check out another collaboration we reviewed with Craig Padilla.
