A Closer Listen
Konstellationen is a true outlier for the Cyclic Law imprint, known for its excursions into dark ambient and drone. Camila Pisani‘s album is trancelike and textured, as twinkling as its title and cover art.
With only six tracks spanning the length of an hour, it’s easy to get lost in these grooves. Konstellationen is a great travel album, as well as the perfect backdrop for athletic endeavors (or watching the World Cup on TV). While the music is instrumental, each piece is accompanied by a corresponding poem.
According to the artist, the album offers “electronic music as a spiritual language … rhythm (links) music, astronomy and human perception.” In the opening poem, “A sob against sadness,” Pisani listens to music “lying on the ground, on the green grass of the starry meadow that whispers the summer days,” timing the poem with the onset of the season. The corresponding track bubbles and percolates before breaking through, first with sub-bass reflecting the depths of the earth, then with higher frequencies that connote yearning and striving. The new melody that appears at the turn of the fourth minute adds excitement and a sense of forward motion.
“Concentric Silences” also sneaks in gently on the crest of a wave before toppling over. The set’s longest track, it nearly doubles the length of its predecessor, allowing the listener to get lost in the undulating patterns. In fact, for the first few tracks, one can imagine the set as a mix tape, which could be created with minor tweaking and sequencing shifts. The popcorn lines that grow in the second minute recall the 90’s heyday of progressive trance, as Pisani “swing(s) to the rhythm of foreign accents.”
“The Abstinence of Thinking (About Me)” continues to showcase Pisani’s ability to compose long, immersive pieces that wiggle and transform beneath the ears. Like the opener, the piece begins in the lower register, gradually introducing interlocking frequencies. At approximately 130 BPM, it’s easy to mix into other records, although its intricacy demands its neighbors be equally complex. Propulsive yet unhurried, it’s the perfect mid-set piece.
“Some Days You Become an Island” cuts the length in half again, while retaining the patient aura of the preceding pieces. Referencing John Donne, the title speaks an equally compelling truth: we are connected to each other, yet often we feel apart. Pisari writes of “different distances,” continuing a theme found in the poetry yet not in the music: the difficulty of navigating a relationship. “Some Days You Become an Island” also contains the album’s latest transition, arriving at 5:14 (of 6:36), implying that sometimes things can turn around at the literal last minute. As if personifying this trajectory, Pisani slows the pace for “Infinite Like Moonscapes,” dropping down to 124 BPMs, noticeable although not drastic, before speeding up again in the album’s closing piece.
The title “Oblique Impulses and Hidden Songs” reflects both the music and poetry. Each contains layers that rise to the surface after repeat plays or readings. By keeping these two separate, Pisari underlines the notion that music can not only create impulses, but remove them; few can dance and make war at the same time, and why would one even try? All too often, words get in the way, while music – as well as Pisani’s oft-mentioned silences – can unite. Konstellationen may be the yin in Cyclic Law’s catalog, including darkness in a discussion of light rather than light in a framework of darkness, but the more one listens to the final transition (which emerges at 6:46), the more one realizes how well it fits. (Richard Allen)
Thu Jul 02 00:01:25 GMT 2026