{"id":341,"date":"2019-07-15T23:06:11","date_gmt":"2019-07-16T03:06:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/?p=341"},"modified":"2019-07-15T23:10:03","modified_gmt":"2019-07-16T03:10:03","slug":"album-review-paradigm-drift-by-michael-vignola","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/2019\/07\/15\/album-review-paradigm-drift-by-michael-vignola\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Paradigm Drift by Michael Vignola"},"content":{"rendered":"\n
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Michael Vignola is an American composer who has had a long career scoring films and television shows. His music is a unique take on ambient minimalism and on his latest album, Paradigm Drift<\/em>, he explores the spacier side of synthwave. The album will be released on August 12, 2019. As a whole, Paradigm Drift <\/em>takes listeners on a journey through the swirling arms of galaxies, into dense clouds of star stuff and across the black emptiness of outer space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Paradigm Drift<\/em> combines more delicate and crystalline \npassages with an underlying sense of foreboding and darkness. There are \nmore ambient moments and moments where there\u2019s a sense of a spacecraft \nrushing through deep space, past great star fields and nebulae. There\u2019s a\n sense of growing hope in some of the tracks and in others that hope \ndissolves into an altogether darker and more uncomfortable sensation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The title track exemplifies the spacesynth nature of the album. It \nstarts out with gentle, warm washes of synth that soar over a driving \ndrum beat. Underneath the initial warmth, a quality of foreboding begins\n to creep into the music. I got the feeling of being a passenger on an \nintergalactic spacecraft winging its way past great stellar structures, \nrushing through the void of space. At first there\u2019s excitement, but it \nbegins to melt into a kind of dread by the end of the track.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Timelapse<\/em>, the second track, begins with a deep droning bass\n and surrounds it with a tapestry of echoing, drifting sound. The \noscillating, flickering melody comes in and floats above that sonic \ntapestry. In my mind, it created a vivid image of watching an object \norbiting through the emptiness of space, especially when the drums kick \nin and add a propulsive quality to the music.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

On Disappearing<\/em>,\n Vignola weaves a delicate melody over and through a backdrop of synth \nsounds and indistinct voices that murmur softly. He has a real facility \nwhen it comes to creating uplifting melodies that are still shot through\n with a sense of melancholy. For me, this track conjures up thoughts \nabout how our lives are, whether we want them to be or not, in the \nprocess of disappearing.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Michael Vignola is at his most minimalist on Bending Gravity.<\/em>\n The dark cello scraping that starts the track is followed by a \nsoundscape that, with only a few basic elements, manages to convey the \nairless darkness and unimaginable emptiness of space. I was struck by \nthe way in which so few elements combined to create such richness.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Terminal One<\/em> does indeed conjure up the image of a \nspacecraft moving towards its final terminal. The beat that comes in \npropels the whole track forward and the sounds of the synth lines that \nmove throughout it start off gently but open out into something far \ngrander. The overall impression of movement and energy is maintained and\n keeps the track pushing to its conclusion.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The repetitive synth arpeggio in the background of Falling to Zero<\/em> floats over an expansive space. The sound of a computer-like \u201cbleep\u201d begins and then more synths sweep in over the top. It is like a satellite transmitting a signal as it orbits. There\u2019s a gentleness to this track but underneath there\u2019s that same sense of a rising darkness that permeates many of the tracks here. The contrast of this shimmering soundscape soaring over terrible depths again conjures up powerful images of outer space.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The sound at the start of Looper<\/em> seems to be traveling out \nacross a vast distance. Slowly a drone begins to rise underneath these \nechoing sounds and continues to grow in intensity, becoming more and \nmore prevalent. It\u2019s a heavy, dark noise. Slowly a gentle, wavering line\n of bell-like tones starts to emerge and then dissipates again. When it \nreturns, it begins to paint a crystalline soundscape over the darkness \nthat underpins it.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

For those who are seeking prototypical synthwave melodies and beats, Paradigm Drift<\/em>\n will prove unsatisfying. However, when it comes to pushing the genre \nforward (as the best proponents of any genre always do) Michael Vignola \nhas succeeded. Vignola manages to weave a synth tapestry full of depth \nand nuance. The tracks on with drums on them have a propulsive energy \nand there are truly dark moments here that add a palpable sense of our \ninsignificance in the cosmos. When you add these new elements to his \ndelicate brand of minimalism, the end result is a compelling voyage \nthrough space and across time.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Vignola is an American composer who has had a long career scoring films and television shows. His music is a unique take on ambient minimalism and on his latest album, Paradigm Drift, he explores the spacier side of synthwave. The album will be released on August 12, 2019. As a whole, Paradigm Drift takes […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[41,38],"class_list":["post-341","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-musicapp","tag-spacesynth","tag-synthwave"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=341"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":345,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/341\/revisions\/345"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=341"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=341"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.postterminus.com\/xf\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=341"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}