Scalar Waves
Man from Mars
Released: October 11st 2024
Reviewed by: Edoardo Gastaldi - November 7, 2024
The glacial, ambiguous, and cathartic multi-layered Album “Scalar Waves” is a modern ambient journey written and composed by the Beuk brothers, also known as Man from Mars.
After a first listen to the tracks, a precise and vivid sentiment gets stuck in our minds – and I hopefully wish any listeners to have experienced that. Music offers different perspectives and a true plethora of meanings depending on where we place our attention. The Album can be depicted in a somehow contradictory way, in fact, the musical styles and moods of the tracks follow a narrative, while the evolution of the titles follows a conflicting one. At the same time, different realities co-exist.
From a conceptual and speculative point of view, by following the title of the tracks, we can easily build a whole story. We are put into a relatively calm and positive condition with “Beautiful Worlds”, then, we are caught up in “The Same Dream”, and we feel stuck - stuck at a point in our life where the same dreams keep happening. Things suddenly start “Weighing Heavy”. We feel the burden of life moving on. Doesn’t it all sound like a short poem? We desperately seek a “New Beginning”. Logically. And at that point, we lose our minds in mystical titles such as “Elsenova” and “Sensen”. These might represent our seeking for calmness and moments of solace in a world we’re parting away with. It lastly all converges, leading to a final “Uplifting Sensation”, which may be our liberation. The law of inevitability. Doesn’t it all look like a trajectory, from rationality and logic to human desperation and ultimately to relief to be found in the unknown?
But what if we dig deeper, beyond (or below) this theatrical scene? We move from sight to ears. From semantics to music. From the title to the sounds. We start listening and actually get familiar with the different tracks and soundscapes moving through the frequency spectrum. The music sounds stunningly haunting and fascinating. Furthermore, if we try to attribute the feelings grasped in the titles to the tracks, we end up with a tremendously beautiful conclusion (that I would define, Art): we don’t. We can’t. We are not able to build a sense and find the dotted lines between the titles and the music. We can’t find relief in “A New Beginning”, the track is enigmatic. We are not capable of perceiving sorrow in “Weighing Heavy”, the music is too open, aware, and brave. We fail in noticing delicacy in “Beautiful Worlds”, the music is densely filled with eerie layers. So… what? Isn’t this law of contradiction magnificently beautiful? Vaguely, Aporia. Opposite solutions coexist in the same Album.
In my very personal interpretation, with this doubtful yet splendid lineup of tracks, the artists wish to open listeners’ minds in order to make them reflect on the meanings of things. Is there a true meaning? Are there only perspectives? What is the truth, if there is one? Truths lie in conditions, and conditions change over time - and even at the same time, they change over space and feels.
What’s true is not what is universal. We carry our own truths and most often those differ from the ones of others.
Trying to join the pills up, “Scalar Waves” carries the listeners towards a suspended state of no philosophical certainties, where anything is possible, all is vague, and multiple directions of thoughts are thus allowed. So, a question may arise, who rules in the land of incongruity?
The answer is: art, and music with it. Music serves as the ultimate proof that the barriers of what is and what is not can be broken. These are liquid, barely visible.
And the ambient atmosphere created by Man from Mars directs the listeners to a free-fall music spiral from which it is rather hard to escape.
Don’t feel amazed if you find yourself listening to the Album on loop for hours trying to understand what can’t be understood - it’s what it was made for.
Edoardo Gastaldi, 7 November 2024