Wonderful words by the ever erudite Adam Turner.

Italian ambient maestro Gigi Masin hasn’t made a full-length solo album for five years. In the time since 2020’s “Calypso”, he’s undergone some life-changing events that have led him to “Movement”, a 9-track exploration of humanity and nature. Machine music with nods to techno, jazz, house and kosmische, but music that is also very emotive, empathic and organic. A set of tracks that breathe and sway, that shift and swirl, never settling for long. 

“Bed On Mars” opens the collection in classical ambient fashion – diffuse, ringing drones, extended notes and the hint of choral voices. The backdrop to some widescreen floating-through-space visuals. Horns appear on “Lost”, cutting through the music’s gossamer gauze quite unexpectedly. One trumpet and then another. A brass conversation going to and fro. Distant drums creeping in. “The Age Of Sampling” changes gear, introducing a breakbeat and percussion, a sustained chord and then a sampled voice – a train station announcer perhaps – another layer of sound. The synths swell and judder, the drums grow in the mix and there’s a palpable sense of motion. The title track starts as a synthetic drift, but another rapid rhythm suddenly propels it forward. Those trumpets reappear, creating a beatific jazz / kosmische hybrid. 

Further and deeper into “Movement” is “Deception Dance”, the LP’s lengthiest track, a 7 and a half minute marriage of robots and clouds, engines and mountains. Synthetic squiggle and shifting, sampled loops surrounding its kick to create something dynamic, alive. 

The album ends with “Fifteen”, a return to the blissed-out drones with which it began. Radio static, horns, an ethereal female vocal and a sense of ascent making for music that rises, transporting us spiritually upwards.

Gigi Masin’s  “Movement” can be ordered directly from Sacred Bones.

You can find more proper, on point, prose from Adam Turner over at his own brilliant blog, The Bagging Area. Adam is also part of the admin team at the mighty Flightpath Estate.