Montreal, Fall / 2024 “The Seas of Solaris” began to take shape here in Montreal during the winter of 2019, almost five years ago. The album was inspired not only by Tarkovsky’s film Solaris but also by the book by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. I was fascinated by the poetic gravity of the images of the Solaris Ocean and deeply moved by the idea of the dead orbiting the living. I watched the film several times, trying to find ways to translate those two feelings into one or two sonic compositions…
Anésio Neto, a.k.a. stellatum_
The Seas of Solaris: Day opens the journey with an atmosphere that evokes light and clarity from Solaris’ ocean. From the first track, deep and persistent sounds immerse us in a space where memory and presence intertwine. Each composition —Os Mares de Solaris, O Chamado, Gibarian, Kelvin, and Outro— builds a sonic narrative oscillating between melancholy and contemplation. Inspired by Tarkovsky and Lem, this first record invites uninterrupted listening, as a ritual of full attention. The experience becomes a mirror of the human condition: fragility, loss, and the persistence of memory.
Montreal, Fall / 2024 “The Seas of Solaris” began to take shape here in Montreal during the winter of 2019, almost five years ago. The album was inspired not only by Tarkovsky’s film Solaris but also by the book by Polish writer Stanisław Lem. I was fascinated by the poetic gravity of the images of the Solaris Ocean and deeply moved by the idea of the dead orbiting the living. I watched the film several times, trying to find ways to translate those two feelings into one or two sonic compositions…
Anésio Neto, a.k.a. stellatum_
The Seas of Solaris: Night dives into the darkness of the sentient planet. The tracks —Oceanos, Harey, Sonhos, Retorno, and Convidados— explore the tension between the real and the imagined. Synthesized drones and noises create a claustrophobic atmosphere, where Harey’s figure and Gibarian’s echoes reappear as inevitable presences. This second record intensifies the project’s sci-fi experience, immersing the listener in a continuous flow of sounds that invite introspection and mystery. Solaris’ night becomes a space of unanswered questions.
Using the field record and the interview as a tool, they reconstruct the work in the Curtina campaign and other rural areas of Tacuarembó, proposing the Horse as the main actor.
With a precise work of territory, sound recording and research, both highlight the work of the animals and the importance of the equine within the social nucleus in rural areas. An environment that still resists certain insolent outbursts of the uncertain modernity, highlighting and rescuing the role of this particular and necessary actor.
RADIOBALLO, una Radio a Caballo (a Radio on Horseback), perhaps the original name of the project, is a series of 3 episodes broadcast in 2022 in NOISE is the Message (Argentina), mutates to become a testimony of 10 passages that predispose to its Attentive LISTENING in a necessary and profound way without prejudices, as an urgent and immediate reflexive portrait in response to the vacuous immediacy of networks and mobile phones.
CREDITS
Idea, Production: Ana Rodríguez, Robert Da Silva. Artistic and Associate Producer: Franco Falistoco. Research: Ana Rodríguez, Robert Da Silva. Guitar: Enrique Rodríguez Viera. Mix: Ana Rodríguez. ReCut + Binaural Remix: Franco Falistoco.
The MATA ATLÂNTICA is an important ecosystem that covers the entire eastern, northeastern, southeastern, and southern coast of Brazil in Latin America. The Brazilian government states that the MATA ATLÂNTICA
“once covered over 1.3 million square kilometers in 17 states of the Brazilian territory, extending over much of the country’s coastline. However, due to human occupation and activities in the region, only about 29% of its original coverage remains today.”
Furthermore, the forest is home to approximately 850 bird species, 370 amphibians, 200 reptiles, 270 mammals, and 350 fish.
Resulting from a week of immersion in Paraty, RJ, Brazil, the soundscapes presented in this album seek to represent a part of the dynamics heard during the summer of 2021-2022. We say “a part” because the acoustic complexity of the region is extremely rich and complex, and our senses limit us to comprehend all of this acoustic dynamics of the forest. We are immersed in the world with our ears, eyes, noses, skin, and mouth, and we only understand what we believe to represent.
We are immersed in the world with our ears, eyes, noses, skin, and mouth, and we only understand what we believe to represent.
With six compositions, the album is a tribute to the MATA ATLÂNTICA. The sequencing of the compositions was designed to invite the listener to move through the various landscapes that make up this extensive domain. For the first time, stellatum_ invited three artists to participate in the production: Eufrasio Prates (BR), Pablo Bas (AR), and Suzuka Kokubu (JP).
The three were challenged to use three soundscapes from the forest to compose a sound piece.
Pablo Bas, with a deep knowledge of sound art techniques, proposes a deconstruction of a landscape and invites us to a nighttime immersion in the acoustic occurrences of the forest in his work Noctámbulas Ficciones Silvestres.
Eufrasio, one of the founders and conductors of the Brasília Laptop Orchestra (BSBLOrk), uses live coding and AI resources in his work “EPA#9AtlanticaMata” inviting us to imagine an integrative panorama between intelligences.
Finally, SUZICA (artist name of Suzuka) marvels us with her work COURAGE guiding us through the vocalizations of the Atlantic fauna.
MATA ATLÂNTICA I & II aim to lead the listener through the experience of rain in the forest. The first evokes mists, in the second, rains break out, dense, strong, and intense. Listening can bring more senses and sensations that I won’t attempt to translate into words.
Last but not least, I would like to thank Franco (Calathea), Pablo Bas, Suzuka, Eufrasio, my wife Camila, Linilson Padovese, and all those waiting for the release of this album.
Thank you very much, and may the MATA ATLÂNTICA be heard and disseminated to the rest of the world.
STELLATUM_ | PH: Alan DonatoSTELLATUM_ | PH: Alan DonatoSTELLATUM_ | PH: Alan DonatoSTELLATUM_ | PH: Alan DonatoSTELLATUM_ | PH: Alan Donato
CREDITS
Executive Producer: Anésio Neto Anésio Neto a.k.a. stellatum_ Artistic and Associate Producer: Pablo Bas. Mixing: Anésio Neto (track 1); Anésio Neto & Pablo Bas (track 5), Eufrasio Prates (track 4); Pablo Bas (tracks 2 and 6); Suzuka Kokubu (track 2). Mastering: Pablo Bas. Brasil/Argentina — 2023
Each one of them approaches each other by means of the same tone that moves them and makes them whisper their truth, their urgent, slow, unstoppable reflection.
In turn, “Triptych” is a tribute that was born out of the most heartbreaking days of my life. It was music that I made (that I had to make) when music no longer made sense to me.
When it all blew up.
These compositions were about facing the splinters, stopping at them, without knowing why, without a choice. I’m not sure if I’ve ever believed in making music again, I know, and I’m amazed to notice, that I’m still making music. I know, and with astonishment I notice, that I am still making music. Perhaps the reasons are not my own to understand.
“Triptych” is and will always be for me a huge, beloved wound.
CREDITOS:
Composition, interpretation and editing: Lorenzo Gomez Oviedo. Production: CALATHEA Experimenta & ADAPTADOR Records. Mastered by: Franco Falistoco.
