Track By Track: Pedro Aguiar – Landscapes And Heartbreaks

 
Music

Destined to put together sounds that are a bit more exciting than the predictable four to the floor, Pedro Aguiar's album Landscapes and Heartbreaks contains more twists and turns than a particularly indecisive river. With everything from choirs to wind instruments to all sorts of technological goodness, you can listen to the album one track at a time below as Pedro guides you through this aural adventure. Here's how he describes his debut aural outing;

"This album represents my occasional urge to escape the 4/4 world. I love the freedom of not worrying with what people will think of my music or if they will play my songs or not. I guess this is quite a selfish album in the sense that I didn’t really wanted to please anyone. I had no grand plan to make an album nor any aspirations to release it with a record label but about a year ago, I had a listen to a variety of my unfinished projects that I had made over the past 3 years and most of it really sounded like an album when pieced together. And so my first album was born."

Western Digital

I made this track using only Omnisphere, no audio samples or loops. 

I honestly don’t think you really need any other synth if your doing more organic kind of stuff which is what this intro is all about. For people like me who don’t have access to a big variety of acoustic instruments, Omnisphere usually gets the job done if you require something a bit more on the acoustic realm. I really like choirs and wind instruments and it helped a lot bringing this track to life.

The Ceremony

I actually really like this one. When I finished this It really gave me the impression of being in the middle of a tribe ceremony. A film-based soundtrack that can also be played in a DJ set seems like a cool idea to me. Its also one of the tracks that i want to make a video for it. I think you can guess what the video will be about. Tribes! 

Hypnagogia

The only collaboration on the entire record. Berllioz is a good friend of mine and an upcoming artist from Lisbon, he's an extensive vinyl collector and therefore has this great ability of instantly knowing what works or doesn't work on a track and that really helps taking a track to the right path. 

Black Palm

This is one of my favourites on the whole album. Black Palm feels like a rewarding relaxation after the twistedness of hypnagogia, almost like going through a dense and dangerous forest and ending up beside a calm lake where peace resides… It is also the turning point of the record, where the dark forces seemed to have calmed down and the more bright side of things start to flourish.

Redemption

Another big contributor to the overall tonality of this album is Native instruments' Guitar Rig which had a major part in this song. If applied correctly, and with the correct sound, it really can produce the most amazing soundscapes.

I usually go for these types of sonorities during the night after a long day of dealing with beats and bass lines, and sometimes some magic happens. Redemption was made in one of those days where creativity just flows naturally and with minimal effort.

Sacred Ritual

As much as I would like to make an album with no drums or beats, that almost seemed impossible with my background, so for this track even though drums were used I wanted to take the listener into soundscape realm to match the concept of the record.

After finding the right percussion sequence i started building around from there.

At first the track didn't seemed to fit, but as time passed I started to feel more and more like it belonged in the album.

Helios

If I recall correctly I believe this is the oldest song on the whole album.

First helios sketch was first laid down in the beginning of 2012, and it started as a full dance track with drums and all. 

That changed very rapidly after adding one of the elements which immediately brought me to a totally differently vibe and feeling, so I ended up removing the drum part and beats and was left with the main core of the song which is basically what you can hear now.

Fado Vadio

Even though this is an album, I will have to admit this track was made under 60 minutes! There are some tracks that seem to be destined to be finished almost immediately after you start the first idea, and those usually are also the best tracks as well. If you find yourself struggling to finish a track for more than 2 days, that usually is a sign that the track isn't working that well, and maybe should be put away for the moment.

Orizaba

There isn't much story or musical background to this song. I tried to make more of a field recording experience. As time passes I'm trying more and more to exchange melodies and notes for textures.

Lost In You

It only seemed logical to end the album with Lost In You. Guitar Rig working its magic here once again, and it was also the first time I managed to use my own voice in a song. You can hear it in the intro and outro part of track. Not an easy task for me to use my own voice in a song so that made me slightly proud. 


Landscapes and Heartbreaks is out on 8th June via Darkroom Dubs.