Fernando Perdomo 2024
Waves 2
Sailing across the world, warm coasts’ dweller eschews a wipeout but catches the wind.
At first glance, Fernando Perdomo may seem to be cutting corners instead of performing cutbacks, as the second chapter of his year-long series of “Waves” is ten minutes shorter than its opening gambit, but there’s a rhyme and a reason to what the American multi-instrumentalist came up with a month after his journey started. Sure, Fern can easily refute the impression of having bitten more than he’s able to chew by demonstrating the schedule that took him to New Zealand and, thus, took a bite out of his time. Instead, Mr. Perdomo used such a chance not only to stylistically tighten his approach by embracing the unity-of-time-and-place” principle and make the pieces’ flow more consistent in terms of mood, but also to get inspired by the new adventure and record a few numbers there and then.
If anything, “Queenstown” and “Sunset In Queenstown” – the pensive former placed close to the album’s beginning, the lacy latter forming its finale – should suggest a loose concept running through the tracks on offer; however, the sequence of these voiceless songs and guitar tones employed to propel them tell a story without Fernando uttering a single word and using only his fingers to do the talking. Yes, “Brothers Of The Ocean” is introduced via an evocative vocalese that’s high on spiritual harmonies before heavy riff and stately six-string figures unfold a hypnotic landscape for the listener to get drawn in, while Perdomo’s bass notes swell and synthesizers paint over an almost symphonic backdrop where volume knob and Mellotron reign supreme – as they do on “Sea To Sea” to dissolve the tuneful cycle’s monumentality by adding filigree to the ballad’s surface. Yet the boisterous, albeit romantic, “Journey On A River” and “Everything Under The Sun” bolster the tentative surf-rock twang with prog sensibilities, and the groovy “Black Mountain Blue Sky” stages a merry drama in front of the audience.
And then there are the effervescent, ethereal – and criminally brief – magic spell of “Calm For Now” to confront and control serenity with pop-oriented worry, and the galloping “This Appearing Act” to increase the album’s cinematic undercurrent which “Alone By The Ocean (3 AM)” accesses acoustically, letting electric ripples lead one’s mind into the great blue(sy) open. Defined by creative and emotional freedom, “Waves 2” is a move forward in Fernando Perdomo’s ambitious trip.
*****
