Spirit Of Unicorn Music 2022
Out To Sea 4
Californian maven of prog-minded guitar stylings embarks on his last escapade amidst the waves and meets familiar specters.
A recording dynamo, Fernando Perdomo doesn’t lose the ability to surprise himself and his followers time after time, so if anyone guessed "The Storm" signaled the climax of the “Out To Sea” trilogy – at least, that was how the composer envisioned this series – its follow-up album presents a persuasive counterargument for those who thought there was no wind left in the franchise’s sails. On the contrary, the nautical adventure’s fourth installment is most fierce in creative terms, ferocious even, the American artist’s multi-instrumental attack never less than impressive, especially with Fern’s influences worn proudly on his sleeve, and though a concept might be optional here, what Perdomo delivered would feel like part and parcel of the guitarist’s steady progress.
Sculpting the spirit of intrepidity with the tight knot of “Out To Sea 4 Theme” in which organ waves swell and bass notes puncture the surface to roll a playful six-stringed zephyr towards the horizon, Fernando steers his vessel to “Final Voyage” – an intensely magnificent, tempo-shifting epic – via the alluring reefs of “Bliss Ascending” where cymbals highlight every fluid turn of the tune, the honey-dipped, viscous passages of “Crestfallen” that envelope the listener’s very soul, and the funky riffs of “Water Landing” that dance across its harmonic seabed. However, Perdomo’s romantic disposition can’t prevent him from experiencing jazzy rapture in the raga-spiced “Song Of Joy” and the Latino-tinctured, percussive psychedelia of “Head Band” whose splashes are wondrously unhinged, before soaring to overcome the vibrant gravity of “Fear” and plunging into “Dream State” to dissolve the vestiges of such assault in ethereal serenity.
That’s quite a way to exit familiar shores in order to find fresh truths out there, in the Great Unknown, and this musician has all the rights to be the captain of the journey beyond.
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