This artist spotlight features a recurring artist: Walmind from Brazil. His albums were featured on this blog earlier, see his earlier works Night Ride
and Purple Sun
.
However, right now we’re focusing on his brand new album: Walls of Time. It’s a 10-track one and guarantees to deliver a lot of synthwave to the listener.
First track is immediately the title one. Walls of Time. It starts right off with some lush pads and tasteful riffs. Some nice plucks in the background pulls in a well positioned and mixed drumkit. The echoed distant background lead compliments the relaxed mood well. There is no heavy lead to listen to or strong bass to process, it’s just as Walmind recommends: to travel and reflect. No doubt this track is already engineered for that. To finish it off we get a fadeout layer by layer.
The second one is called Heart. The starting mood is similar to the first one however this time we get vocals! The tools are the same but we get a nice plucky background and smooth lead for the vocoded voices. A calming bridge is always a must for these songs and this one does not dissappoint. The next verses are following the first one in style and there is a nice fadeout at the end.
Now we’re in for a treat. Have you heard Brazilian Synthwave before? Of course apart from Walmind himself is Brazilian. This is your chance. A very authentic synthwave interpretation is what this track is. It is difficult to keep the identity of a song being reminiscent of locality yet still maintaining the main style but Walmind uses a tricky solution with bongos with a minor scale pads and leads. The end result is great.
It's more than just a dream. - it’s a tall order for a dreamy almost chillwave track. The recipe is the same as the title track but this time we get real vocals with more echoy leads between the verses. Similar to Heart.
The fifth, Illusions of the future raises the mood a bit. It has a strong plucky bass to wake us up just enough to be aware that this song has a different thing to say. The curly lead also adds to the atmosphere. The bridge is the otherwise similar quiet period but with some extra percussions and nice fade-in to the next verse.
No matter how far starts even more dreamy than the others with plucky arps and lush pads. However it’s another song with vocals! What the other track had, this one carries on. A good track.
In Echoes of my mind we get a lot of echos and a nice plucky bass. It’s not a track to think a lot about but a nice and easy going one. The echoed lead does just what it says on the tin, provides a smooth listening of the composition as a whole. This one is really chillwave territory.
Oh, I thought it can’t get more chill than that, but Astronomy just proved me wrong. It’s even more dreamy, chillwave, you name it. This one only has a few things but that’s already enough: a echoed drum and lead with a echoed pad. Very slow paced but that totally fits.
Passionate Eyes starts with different instruments. The vocals have a little extra processing on it for reverb and echo. The track itself is on a more serious note with a piano track, pluck bass, sawtooth lead and deep pad.
The closing track Ego Block starts quick but the main theme is actually: slow. The mood is less than relaxing but the plucky lead and stronger pad and bass means business: it’s more tense than the earlier relaxed tracks. The general message is an interesting mix between calm and call to attention. This one is a good track as well.
So there you have it. Walmind is really special to listen to and it’s a good album to travel and reflect as he said himself. Definitely recommended!
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