Fernando Perdomo 2026
Clouds 5
Six-string nocturnes knock compromised tranquility out of the sky to create riveting narrative without a single word.
For all the variety of his year-spanning series, Fernando Perdomo always perceived “Waves” and “Clouds” as multi-instrumental vehicles for visually inspired insights into tunefulness, rather than pure exercises in guitar wizardly. Still, the American composer, who used to go it alone in the studio as a one-man ensemble, is first and foremost a fretboard master, and the fifth installment in Perdomo’s 2026 sequence of albums sees him concentrating on this primary means of rock grace – although as far the ten pieces on offer go, rock is far from what Fernando’s fingers do here. Stopping short of half an hour, they gel into the briefest record he’s ever come up with and, thus, immensely condense the artist’s sentiments to encapsulate a wide spectrum of feelings. And surely, they can’t fall short of expectations.
And of Perdomo-patented expectancy either – as “Anything Can Happen” eloquently and exquisitely expresses in less than a minute by opening a vast, tension-filled space between high and low frequencies Fernando’s slowly plucking off his strings before letting the layers of mini-epic “Move With Life” overlap and ripple, mandolin-like, to turn a cover photo into a finely filigreed moonlight serenade. It’s a penumbral experience which “The Dark Mass” sets in motion via folk-informed resonance where solemn passages seem to welcome pauses but never resolve a lick into complete silence, so that the notes linger and morph into ivories-esque echoes. “Overcast” may embroider the same sonic cloth with a spiritual sense of outdoor claustrophobia, and “The Baron” add brooding to the wonder for “Big Sigh” to boil further on, yet the intricacies of “Bangor Sun” are revealed in a gradual, reverie-inducing way, while “The End Of An Astounding Day” brings all these together for a fantastically understated finale.
A broodily soul-embracing album that’s bound to grow on its listener.
****4/5
