Review: Stellar Om Source “Joy One Mile”

12 Jun 2013 — Andrew Wagner

With a name that refers to the potentials of spiritual transcendence, Stellar Om Source (aka Christelle Gualdi) may be best known for her explorations of an ambient synth and quasi-new age sound on a stream of late-2000s CDRs. Albums like her 2010 LP Trilogy Select placed her amongst the ranks of like-minded experimental synth acts Oneohtrix Point Never, Emeralds, and Dolphins Into the Future. Though mostly silent since then, Gualdi’s new release, Joy One Mile, sees her turning away from the psychedelic realms of space and towards the dancefloor, in-the-process crafting a mesmerizing album of techno cuts and finding a different sort of beat-driven spiritual transcendence.

The best music is often that which carves out and creates its own little universe, and despite the many references to Detroit techno, Joy One Mile is an album with a sonic world that feels distinctly its own. All of the songs on Joy One Mile are remarkably complex affairs. These are tracks that don't so much as build in the conventional sense as much as they relentlessly push forward, accumulating a complex array of synth lines and drum beats that would be near impenetrable if not for the masterful arrangement (provided by Kassem Mosse). Joy One Mile’s stunning density is perhaps best exemplified by track “The Range”, in which the joys are to be found not in any sort of melody but in the song’s array of polyrhythms, the ways in which Gualdi’s many layers of beats work both with and against each other. The intensity never lets up, and in turn, “The Range” is an enticing song that consumes you, surrounding you with rich, syrupy synths and squelching bass lines.

For all of its structural experimentation and complexity, Joy One Mile is an absolute pleasure to listen to throughout. Gualdi herself notes in the press release that this is an album that somehow embraces “both the misery and the ecstasy” and nowhere is this more clear than in standout track “Par Amour”. Here, Gualdi adds a (seemingly genderless) vocal sample that, apart from a few choice phrases (“the truth lies within your heart”) is nearly unintelligible. Gualdi treats the vocals as just another instrument, with the beats often threatening to overtake the vocals, and the results are invigorating. The song at once seems to both question and fulfill the vocal promises of finding a sort of all-consuming love. Elsewhere, lead single “Elite Excel” takes its time exploring various beat grooves before erupting midway with a dizzying burst of arpeggiated synths. And, on “Natives / Most Answers Never Unveiled”, one can hear just a hint of Stellar Om Source’s former sound in its opening ambient waves, before the song gives way to a near-frantic section of beats, only to return once again to ambience.

Throughout, Joy One Mile is an album whose driving force may be an embrace of chaos, existing at the high levels of intensity where seemingly disparate emotions (the misery, the ecstasy) meld together and become one. Its pleasures unfolding after each subsequent listen, Joy One Mile is an undoubtedly bold record, one whose grasp you won’t want (or be able) to leave for long.

Joy One Mile is available today from RVNG Intl.