EREBUS, LA SUITE DE LAS SOMBRAS.

Asceta is an instrumental group from Chile founded In 2020. Their music is composed by Rodrigo Maccioni who plays electric guitar, flute and synths, but the rest of the instrumentation (apart from the rhythm section featuring electric bass) is completely acoustic, representing the world of art music: violin, cello, clarinet, bassoon, oboe, cor anglais and piano. This is their second album.

The first piece is very slow and moody but right away In the lengthy second track the RIO-ish rhythmical and melodic complexity is on full action. The wind instruments and strings pretty much rule the soundscape together with highly sophisticated drumming that brings the progressive rock or fusion element to the otherwise chamber music oriented sound. In fact, the composer's electric guitar or synths have surprisingly unnoticeable roles In the music.

The album seems to have a conceptual story printed In the booklet, but unfortunately my Spanish is far too limited to try and make much sense of it. Sombras means shadows, I suppose, and indeed "A suite of shadows" fits to the mysterious and rather dark-toned atmosphere. But there's a playful side too, it's not depressive listening. All In all this music is pretty timeless, so to speak. As a prog rock album it more or less could have come from the late seventies when European group like Univers Zero were making this kind of avant chamber prog. And for the classical music influences you could go back to the modernistic era In the first half of the twentieth century. But perhaps this high level of production and the general sophistication In the musical flow takes a few decades of avant prog evolution.

RIO is not a subgenre close to my heart, and I'm aware my humble review won't add much to the previous reviews here. Nevertheless, I enjoy this arty but not pretentiious music and 'm grateful of finding this band. Also the black & white artwork is excellent.

Social review comments

Review related links

• Send comments to Matti
• Report this review (#3207665)
• Buy ASCETA music online with PA partners
• Show all ASCETA MP3/Stream
• Go to ASCETA page for videos, full discography with ratings, reviews and much more
• Go to Erebus, la suite de las sombras. page for more details, where to buy and ratings/reviews
• Search the Forum for ASCETA related discussions