Compilations of older works thrown together are hard to critique when you’re living in the-now. Even thinking of “going back” and putting yourself in that head-space is a feat. So, like any other day, it’s the grain-of-salt that’s bitten to figure the feel of what we hear. Thought, thinking about it, the tracks GABRIEL has compiled in Roads Once Traveled 2003-2009 Volume 1 on Illuminated Paths isn’t necessarily hard to pin down, no, but (again) [head-space]. The younger C would gush over this thinking it’s totally future sounding stuff (which these works were(?) and now are way ahead of their time in sound, or at least matching professional level collage music making). The younger C was a sentimental, and sentimentality is something that’s flagrant in Roads Once Traveled 2003-2009 Volume 1. Almost as if all these paths GABRIEL took have all lead to some sort of remembrance. And ironically it found a home on Illuminated Paths! Read more history below, and then click that Bandcamp link to stream or grip the tape.
This is the first volume in a series that represents Gabriel’s body of work recorded during the years of 2003-2009.
These tracks have been culled from a variety of sources and remastered. Gabriel has hand picked a collection of works from an archive of material that contains upwards of 100 tracks. The source projects are the embodiment of an aesthetic that has its roots in Gabriel’s love for old tape recorders and record players.
As a child, Gabriel spent many hours experimenting with recording devices and has a love for the artifacts that come from old electronics, radios and the like. He combined this with his passion for sound effects and synthesizer tones that were so prevalent in the music he was exposed to as a young person growing up in the 80’s. The end result is a sound that is saturated with low fidelity elements, beds of noise, home made field recordings from his trips to the shore and retro synths. All glued together with downtempo beats and ambient pads.