Fernando Perdomo 2025
Waves 5
Dusky ruminations from shore-faring musician on his way to distant, yet ever-close, horizon.
It seemed inevitable that, at some point, melancholy would set in over “Waves” because, with all the pieces written specially for a particular album, one of twelve which this series will eventually comprise, and with the tendency of pieces that come from the same time, if not place, to cluster around certain moods, Fernando Perdomo was bound to serve up a sundown chapter. There’s nothing wrong in displaying emotional variety, of course, and the American artist is as well-versed in sculpting elegy as he is in delivering joviality, so humor has seeped into the fifth chapter of the instrumental journey the master’s been on for some time now, but for the most part what’s on offer here feels introspectively serious, with even stylistic scope of such a pilgrim’s progress slightly expanded.
The genre-swelling is at the fore from the very start, stately opening “Meditation For Jesse Gress” finding Fern explore raga for the first time in this context and make it sound baroque, as sitar-like lines get woven around twang that’s stitched to rippling drone in the background in an enchanting way. Still, while “A Mystery” soars, propelled by a solid beat, just as majestically, “Low Tide” pretends to tone down the lights to go, anchored by Perdomo’s fluid bass, towards deeper frequencies without losing a lumen of its filigree. Yet whereas the story-packing ballad “You Do Not Look Like A Fernando” discards merriment in favor of dispair, the brisk “Sunray” – a sequel of sorts to the immortal “Alone Again Or” – embraces flamenco vigor and funk swagger, and “Stomper XL” bares a cheerful Caribbean vibe rather brazenly.
On the other side of sentimental spectrum dwell “A Morning Walk” which moves pensively along country lane or spellbinding, albeit criminally brief, and “Evolution” which reveals an almost symphonic expanse in the folk-informed space between electric sway and electronic shimmer. But “Ghosts In The Water” fathoms subaquatic new-age, and “Deep Sea Diver” returns the listener to the East to stage a hypnotic, harmonic finale in a gentle, caressing manner. A welcome, observations-focused respite in this arresting series.
****1/2
