{"id":25100,"date":"2023-04-08T05:30:51","date_gmt":"2023-04-08T09:30:51","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/?p=25100"},"modified":"2023-04-07T11:08:49","modified_gmt":"2023-04-07T15:08:49","slug":"album-review-leon-alvarado-charging-the-electric-dream","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/2023\/04\/08\/album-review-leon-alvarado-charging-the-electric-dream\/","title":{"rendered":"Album Review: Leon Alvarado &#8212; Charging the Electric Dream"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"alignright size-full wp-image-25101\" src=\"http:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/leon_alvarado_charging.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"350\" height=\"350\" srcset=\"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/leon_alvarado_charging.jpg 350w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/leon_alvarado_charging-300x300.jpg 300w, https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/2023\/04\/leon_alvarado_charging-150x150.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 350px) 100vw, 350px\" \/>I\u2019ve covered at least two previous releases from Leon Alvarado. 2014\u2019s <i>Music from an Expanded Universe<\/i> was a kind of ambient chillwave set; <i>The Future Left Behind<\/i> (2016) leaned in a more prog-rock direction. Those records drew upon the additional artistry of guest players like Trey Gunn. Alvarado\u2019s latest, <i>Charging the Electric Dream<\/i> is a solo work in the most literal sense of the phrase. And it steps away from the prog style that has defined much of the Venezuelan-born musician\u2019s work, leaning instead toward a decidedly more synth-centered sound with a cinematic feel.<\/p>\n<p>Listeners may hear hints of Jean-Michelle Jarre or mid-period Tangerine Dream in the glacial, impressionistic compositions on <i>Charging the Electric Dream<\/i>. The bloop-bleep synthesizer texture create a retro feel, and the meditative quality of cuts like \u201cAlternative Frequencies\u201d place the music in an early \u201870s, time-capsule place. But then \u201cMegapolis,\u201d drawing on hypnotic beats and soundscapes, sounds in places eerily like the basic tracks from parts of Pink Floyd\u2019s <i>The Wall<\/i>.<\/p>\n<p>The arrangements are perhaps less densely textured than one might expect of such a project; often as not, a handful of machines are employed to create the sonic palette for the seven instrumental pieces. And the year-gone-by character is reinforced further by the album\u2019s length: at under 38 minutes, it runs about as long as did most vinyl-format LPs of a half century ago.<\/p>\n<p>Alvarado\u2019s tunes on this set work just fine when held up to active listening, but the character of the music may suit <em>Charging the Electric Dream<\/em> best for use as background audio.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>I\u2019ve covered at least two previous releases from Leon Alvarado. 2014\u2019s Music from an Expanded Universe was a kind of ambient chillwave set; The Future Left Behind (2016) leaned in [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":25101,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5,26,40,48,49,65],"tags":[1308],"class_list":["post-25100","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-ambient","category-electronica","category-instrumental","category-new-age","category-new-release","category-review","tag-leon-alvarado","cat-5-id","cat-26-id","cat-40-id","cat-48-id","cat-49-id","cat-65-id","has_thumb"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25100","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=25100"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25100\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":25102,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/25100\/revisions\/25102"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/25101"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=25100"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=25100"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blog.musoscribe.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=25100"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}