My Own Island
“My Own Island” is the result of my latest explorations within the immersive music realm and is my first Dolby Atmos album. My last album “Expansive Nothingness” was mixed binaurally and I really appreciated the spaciousness that the technology lent to my compositions. After that album was released in 2021, I became curious about Dolby Atmos and so alongside the creative process of composing this latest release, I was also figuring out the technical aspects of designing and setting up my own Dolby Atmos studio. I was interested in creating a studio environment that is immersive so that my composing, editing, mixing and mastering experience was also immersive. And in the process, I felt like I was creating my own island.
“My Own Island” is about that personal creative space and individual internal reality that each of us has. Each track on the album are poems within poems where I encoded my ideas and feelings into the sounds, loops and melodies. Even the album titles can be read like a poem. The guitar is the main instrument (even synth sounds are played with a midi guitar) with the addition of supporting instruments like voice, charango, clarinet, prepared vst piano, various synths and field recordings. All sounds pass through hardware effects back and forth before being recorded in my DAW. The mix is also a big part of the composition where I work with fader and knob gestures as an expressive tool in order to add a more human feeling. The result is a weaving in and out of leitmotifs that travel through ambient landscapes, dub infused passages or even sometimes song-like structures. A humanistic, expressionist, unclassified album guided by intuition and mixed in Dolby Atmos and made entirely on my own island.
Composed, performed, recorded, mixed, and mastered by Michel Mazza: Electric, acoustic and midi guitar, charango, clarinet, various electronics, effects, field recordings, various analogue synths and vsts plus mixed in Dolby Atmos at Post Present Future Studios in Hudson, NY.
Available in ATMOS from Immersive Audio > HERE
Vocals and lyrics: idiiom | Cover Art: Linda Emmerman
Tracklisting:
- Long Ago
- Remote Controlled Human
- Awake
- Ice Covered
- Exhausted
- Slowly But Surely
- Distorted Hope
- Plant a Plant
- Admit You Were Duped
- My Own Island
Odnu
OdNu is the musical alias of Michel Mazza. Originally from Buenos Aires, Argentina and currently residing in Hudson, NY. Michel’s compositions are a constant experiment and interplay of instruments, different techniques, electronics and his moods and feelings. He often works with repetitive tiny melodies creating a dialogue between them amid textures of grainy decomposed sounds often from his main instrument the guitar but also including synths, (usually triggered using the midi guitar), field recordings and other acoustic instruments, the result is melodic, cinematic and otherworldly. Besides working as a composer, Michel also writes and directs short films and music videos, works as a freelance film/tv video editor, mixer and sound designer and runs his own postproduction house called Post Present Future. www.michelmazza.com | www.postpresentfuture.tv
Reviews
Igloo Magazine
OdNu’s My Own Island (following-up from 2021’s Expansive Nothingness, also on Audiobulb) opens with tranquility and utter finesse via “Long Ago;” ambient bubbles burst, subdued found sounds, effervescent clicks, and instrumental threads take us into relaxed and wide open landscapes. The Buenos Aires and Hudson, NY-based audio exploration dives into an “immersive music realm” and his first Dolby Atmos album. As the release unravels, it’s clear that these micro-shoegazed moments (“Remote Controlled Human,” “Ice Covered,” and “Exhausted” ) introduce elongated guitar strands and blurred voices—courtesy of idiiom—deep down in the mix. Coming to life, capturing our senses, and massaging nostalgic memories as shuffled notes drift in front of our eyes. The title track timidly provides textured beat patches way off in the background, as those fleeting voices call back to us again.
Guitar flickers intertwine with delicate synth tones and drones on My Own Island. It’s a creative surplus of dense yet minimalist extractions that call out to nature; an organic overflow of simplicity. Rendered blips and disheveled bleeps recall times gone by as emotive soundscapes compliment any mood. Ultimately, OdNu designs unique aural vistas we’ve yet to discover, and the voyage getting there is simply sublime. If “Plant a Plant” doesn’t lift your soul or shift your focus, we’re not sure what will.
Read original > HERE
African Paper
Audiobulb Records bringen Anfang September ein neues digitales Album des unter dem Pseudonym OdNu arbeitenden argentinischen Sound- und Multimediakünstlers Michel Mazza heraus. Wie auf zurückliegenden Arbeiten verwebt Mazza feinsinnige, oft ambiente repetitive Muster mit einer Vielzahl an Sounds, die in der Hauptsache der Gitarre, Synthesizer und Field Recordings entspringen, doch auch Klarinette, Charango und diverse Effekte kommen zum Einsatz. Die oft cinematisch anmutende Melodik und die atmosphärische Ausrichtung sind laut Label stets von momenthaften Stimmungen und Gefühlen angeregt. Das Album ist über Bandcamp erhältlich.Audiobulb Records bringen Anfang September ein neues digitales Album des unter dem Pseudonym OdNu arbeitenden argentinischen Sound- und Multimediakünstlers Michel Mazza heraus. Wie auf zurückliegenden Arbeiten verwebt Mazza feinsinnige, oft ambiente repetitive Muster mit einer Vielzahl an Sounds, die in der Hauptsache der Gitarre, Synthesizer und Field Recordings entspringen, doch auch Klarinette, Charango und diverse Effekte kommen zum Einsatz. Die oft cinematisch anmutende Melodik und die atmosphärische Ausrichtung sind laut Label stets von momenthaften Stimmungen und Gefühlen angeregt. Das Album ist über Bandcamp erhältlich.
Read original > HERE