Ubeboet - Spectra (Twenty Hertz, 2007)

1 Premia Lucis 3:53
2 Electe 4:25
3 The Invisible Presence 5:10
4 Il Sogno 4:25
5 Vuelo, Son, Mar, Canto Interno 5:12
6 Radix 6:53
7 Septem 4:01
8 Corridor 1:23
9 3am, Tuesday Night 3:22

Some way away from Promotion's somewhat unkempt fields is the more refined preserve of Ubeboet’s Spectra. Miguel Angel Tolosa, Ubeboet man, is a Madrid-based artist hitherto more absorbed in lowercase concerns. Spectra, however, finds the trajectories of musique concrète, drone, phonography and minimalism converging beauteously. A cathedral-esque space hosts a glass-sculpted entwining of tones, opening pieces, like "Premia Lucis", seeming to allude to medieval Christian liturgy. Soft tintinnabulations swim through light drone and flutter across the sonic spectrum. What initially strikes as a transparent work of digital drone with a few ambient flourishes, however, becomes increasingly episodic and opaque. Apparently realised using “field recordings, fm radio, tape recorder, lap steel guitar” added to the ubiquitous “laptop”, the rougher edge these infusions impart to base tone-motions make new disclosures, as Tolosa's lowercase breeding starts to show. A piece like "Vuelo, Son, Mar, Canto interno" displays his sound design prowess in endowing these vignettes with pockets and folds into which detail is tucked for questing listeners to probe. The further the album progresses, the more celestial sites are abandoned for more ambiguously shaded chambers. Spectra, overall, expertly offsets the compositional austerity of minimalism with a certain sensory indulgence of timbre, subtly blending numinous and luminous.
Twenty Hertz

So far Miguel A. Tolosa, also known as Ubeboet have released a couple of works, mainly through MP3 labels, such as his own Con-V but also Earlabs and Zeromoon. 'Spectra' is a release that might be the first that is produced in any sort of commercial way. Ubeboet's music is not an odd-ball for the Twenty Hertz label, as the nine pieces show a deep interest in digital drones. Usually it's hard to think what went into the production of drone music, but here it's clear that the laptop is at the hard. Around it we find field recordings, FM radio, tape recorder and a lap steel guitar. Soft tinkles occur, embedded in a warm bed of digital insect chirping, moving through high and low ends of the sound spectrum. Nothing new under the microsun, but I must admit that this was quite a nice journey. Maybe it's the small melodies that are used here and there that add just that little bit of extra needed to stand out, in a very positive manner, from the usual suspects in this field. It's an absolutely fine release and hopefully the start of more beautiful things (with, to be honest, some minor changes to make this reviewer happy and see a break with the drone genre).
Vital Weekly

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