On his third solo release, we see the mexican producer complement his dense-layered creations with oscillating arpeggios, ostinatos and repetitive programmed beats, venturing even deeper into a kosmiche muzik sound.
Yamil Rezc is a (very) high profile composer and producer. He has worked in different projects going from scoring plays and movies, to produce albums for such consolidated acts like Pepe Aguilar and Julieta Venegas (effort which won him a Grammy). In spite of all the praise that comes with his name, Rezc's position regarding music has remained the same: a humble vision in which he advocates sincerity above everything else. Under the TRANSGRESORCORRUPTOR moniker, Yamil experiments with analog synthesizers to create shiny and immense soundscapes that, thanks to his keen ear for detail, seem to have frolicking life within them, due to all of those nuances generated from the clashing oscillations and textures.
After the release of HIT (2018) with Static Discos, and having collaborated with Fax on an album that made its best efforts not to sound like the what the powerful Burnt Friedman-Jaki Liebezeit duo did on Secret Rhythms, Yamil returns with his second solo album. It can be seen as a continuation of what he was doing on HIT, since all those everlasting drones still have the same liquid-sliding-over-glass cadence, thanks to the discrete hints of phaser and flanger they're embedded with; however, in TRANSFORMERA, we see the producer using oscillating arpeggios and ostinatos, as well as repetitive programmed rhythms to complement the dense atmospheric textures he creates. This album ventures even deeper into the kosmiche musik realm, although there are some brief detours to other genres.
The album starts the same way as the previous release, with a pedal note that slowly gains the company of different tonalities which creep up the scale until they reach the high range. At this point, the act of changing octaves in such fashion has become a cornerstone technique of ambient music; its efficiency has been proven numerous times and for someone to mess it up is almost unheard of, specially when it comes to a musician of Yamil's tenure.
"SAGY" mixes things up by adding a discrete touch of dream-pop to this mostly-Germanic experience. If a reverb-soaked voice were to be added to it, it could easily pass for an early Slowdive b-side, or even as a dreamier Frazier Chorus. With the 13 minute epic,"ARDOUER", TRANSGRESORCORRUPTOR gently wraps us in a synthesizer-only piece once more, "A" jolts some pulse back into the album again by being the second song that has a beat; they way it breaks through the entangled synthetic textures will bring to mind a Tangerine Dream or Ashra Temple template.
From the fourth song onwards, a very clear pattern emerges: we go from an incorporeal song to a beat ridden one and so on. TRANSFORMERA loses its ability to surprise the listener once this pattern becomes apparent, but the songs themselves are -for the most part- mesmerizing in their own right, although some pieces fail to ever evolve, and the only thing they manage is to overstay their welcome. "SAGY" fumbles around directionless, eventually losing its way -and the listener- after five minutes; "ARDOUER" even with all its vastness and its undeniably mesmerizing effect, could have been trimmed a few minutes. However, cuts like "RVON", "TRANSMUTATION" or the ephemeral "FLYER" (which displays a beautiful arpeggio), the mexican producer proofs that lack of direction is not something that defines TRANGRESORCORRUPTOR's work; these tracks are dynamic, ever-moving and better summarize what the artist aims to achieve with this project.
Even within these areas of opportunity, the immaculate production gives us enough space to move around and find hints of geniality; the sustained notes feel tupid and colorful (as the cover image suggests) which gives them plenty of volume, accentuating little sonic details thanks to the sound effects altering their frequency.
Every piece feels like it belongs to an alternative world, one that completely is of Yamil's making, and that's the reason why TRANSFORMERA feel so personal and captivating in spite of its blunders. The idea behind Rezc's works is to create a safe-haven and this is transmitted so well; the aim is not to achieve perfection, is to find peace.