Pale Blue Dots

Oso Leone - Gallery Love [AMB 1903 ESP 2019 FLAC]

Gallery Love achieves what it sets out to do and more, taking the listener on an auditory journey with lucid song structures that ebb and flow like the waves. A sublime musical experience, its hypnotic repetition is an ode to refinement, and the gentle forays into ambient electronica and jazz show impeccable restraint and sensitivity.  

The opening track and first single Virtual U was born from very few elements. A beat on the MPC, a few chords on the Korg Trident and some gently lilting vocal jams create the structure, like a digital collage of feelings as vocalist Xavier Marin describes it. 

"I see this song as a hyperobject, an external entity moulding modern relationships, shadowing us. An anti-form creating distance in the closeness. A vast empty space between two islands.” 

Recorded at his Mother’s house, Best In You was the last song written on the record, whilst the mystically poetic Agró Blanc is named after a type of heron that dwells in Mallorca. The band describe River of Jasmines as the most mysterious track on the record, the lyrics coming to Xavier during a nap in the studio. 

Vernal Pools is a funky existentialist piece, a reflection of a landscape in a pond, a contemplative loop, an iconic natural spot. A dubby & aqueous bassline conducts the title album’s title track, it’s ambient sounds featuring traces of kalimba and a field recording of an owl who frequented the house during the night. A Pale Blue Dot is a floaty, dream-like jam and Samuel Sings is a “calling to a lost soulmate.” The dainty trance of Fountain At the Entrance rounds things off in mesmerising fashion. 

All in all, this could be the most chilled album you hear this weekend.

01 Virtual U
02 Best In You
03 Gallery Love
04 Agró Blanc
05 River Of Jasmines
06 Vernal Pools
07 A Pale Blue Dot
08 Samuel Sings
09 Cos.Imo!
10 Blue Come In
11 Fountain At The Entrance