Just that first change of power and pace that ushers in “Uncanny Valley,” that moment when the searing and intricate guitars suddenly disappear to be replaced by mournful pianos and raga-influenced vocal deliveries, speaks volumes about the nature of this album and indeed Herman Martinez, the man behind it. It is, to use a word which isn’t a real word, an un-second-guess-able experience.
UltraTerrestrial sounds like a sonic quest to find order in the chaos of the universe, or at least meaning. It is also the sound of an artist juxtaposing genres and styles, blending raw, rock-and-roll guitars with delicate dreamscapes, positioning sky-scraping highs next to luminous lulls for maximum effect, threading accessibility through more wayward creative urges, creating sonic landscapes as beguiling as the psychedelic cover that adorns it.
“Changeling,” the current single, sits between rock and a weird place, exploring the idea of losing a sense of yourself, or at least not recognising who you have become. “Cauda Pavona” wanders into a delicate, prog-folk realm, one that occasionally explodes into intense salvos, and the title track is a (space) opera in its own right, blending sounds from numerous genres as it explores the stranger possibilities of our existence.
UltraTerrestrial feels like a gathering of forgotten dreams and half-remembered pasts—fragments and ideas, you didn’t realise you were even holding on to, a deep dive into the subconscious. It ebbs and flows between hauntological feelings, making you nostalgic for paths you’ve never walked, places you have never visited, and able to recognize voices from worlds caught between worlds, existences, and frequencies. It creates feelings of déjà vu for things that never happened in your lifetime and taps into a bigger consciousness than merely your own.
Never has music ever quite felt like a portal to another way of thinking. Wow!
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