Interlude on the Journey: a pause at the centre of the road

 I have just published a new video for “Interlude on the Journey”, the instrumental piece placed at the centre of The Journey, my conceptual album within The Machine in the Botanical Garden.

This piece works as a quiet turning point within the album. It is not a song in the usual sense, nor simply a transition: it is a suspended space, a pause in the middle of the road, where acoustic guitar and electronic textures breathe together.

In the video, I play acoustic guitar while different electronic layers are performed and shaped with tools such as Native Instruments Komplete Kontrol M32, Lunacy Audio Cube, Polyend Synth, and Touché by Expressive E. But more than showing devices, what interests me is the physical contact with sound: the hand on the string, the hand on the keyboard, the gesture on the controller, and the machine responding in an almost organic way.

The Journey deals with inner conflict, exhaustion, guilt, lucidity, and that moment when we begin to see more clearly the road we are walking. Within that path, “Interlude on the Journey” opens a kind of clearing: it does not resolve anything explicitly, but it allows the listener to stop for a moment, listen, and breathe before moving forward.

In many ways, this piece reflects an essential part of The Machine in the Botanical Garden: the coexistence of acoustic and electronic sound, of human gesture and technology, of the fragility of a guitar surrounded by a synthetic atmosphere.

More about the project:

http://themachineinthebotanicalgarden.com

Before the Journey — Performance Excerpt (The Machine in the Botanical Garden)

A new video is now available.

Before the Journey reveals a fragment from the opening of the album The Journey, part of my project The Machine in the Botanical Garden.

This excerpt focuses on the instrumental core that sets the album in motion, where machine and guitar interact in real time, tracing the language that unfolds throughout the record.

Before the full arrangement emerges, something essential is already there.

→ You can explore the full album and related material here:
https://themachineinthebotanicalgarden.com

New Album Release — The Journey

 The Journey is now available.

This album emerges from a moment of realization — when you understand that the road you are on was not entirely chosen by you.

It moves through inner conflict, exhaustion, and the quiet pressure of a world that keeps asking for more, promising everything in return.

The Journey does not seek answers or destinations.

It simply slows the machine for a moment…
long enough to listen, and to remain lucid.

Nuevo álbum - El sentido de la muerte - El cancionero de Ana

 “El sentido de la muerte” es un álbum de 8 canciones y 6 interludios que explora el fin de la vida desde una mirada íntima y emocional. Creado para el proyecto musical El cancionero de Ana, este viaje reflexivo parte de la pérdida y el duelo para transformarse en una búsqueda de significado.

A través del personaje de Ana, interpretado con la voz de Carolina Sospedra, cada pieza revela sensaciones, reflexiones, recuerdos y preguntas que, a lo largo del recorrido, sugieren ir encontrando algo…

Aquí puedes escuchar el álbum completo:

Disponible también en la principales plataformas digitales, accede a ellas desde la página del proyecto: https://www.juanramos.es/elcancionerodeana/

New Release: Tell Me When – A Plea for Permission

 I’ve just released a new song titled Tell Me When.

It was born from a disturbing question:

What if even disobedience required permission?

The song tells the story of someone who has fully given up their decision-making — someone who no longer acts unless instructed by someone… or something. Even getting it wrong requires a signal.

Musically, it’s an intimate, restrained piece where acoustic and electronic elements coexist. The voice is layered with subtle synthetic textures and a mechanical pulse provided by the "Synth" from Polyend, combined with acoustic guitar and a four-part string arrangement.

It’s part of my ongoing project The Machine in the Botanical Garden, where I explore the relationship between humanity, emotion, and technology.

You can listen to it on all major streaming platforms, and read more about the song on the project’s official site.

https://themachineinthebotanicalgarden.com/

Metamorphosis – a surrender to the artificial

This piece emerges from a troubling question:

What if perfection were within reach, by becoming something artificial?

Ageless, flawless, fearless…

An eternal beauty, untouched by time.

In Metamorphosis, one of the garden’s characters gives in to that longing. He dreams of merging with the machine. And in doing so, he sees the world from that new, precise, immaculate place.

But something is lost.

And it’s precisely that absence —what he can no longer feel— that wakes him up.

The track is part of The Machine in the Botanical Garden, a project that blends acoustic and electronic elements to tell poetic, symbolic stories.

Now available on all major streaming platforms.

More info at themachineinthebotanicalgarden.com

XAOC Samarkanda – First Impressions and Modular + Strings Composition

Samarkanda – delay, memory, and strings

Ever since I got my hands on it, Samarkanda by XAOC Devices has fascinated me.

I’ve used it in a recent piece that blends modular synths with a fully written string quartet — seeking a balance between repetition and movement, between digital textures and classical writing.

In this case, the East Beast runs a very simple sequence, almost like a cantus firmus, creating space for the Samarkanda delays and the evolving harmony of the strings to grow, intertwine, and reshape the whole. Like vines slowly covering a block of concrete until it becomes part of the landscape.

I combined channels in normal and reverse modes, synced from Pamela’s New Workout.

One of the delays is very short, with high feedback, producing a metallic resonance.

Another builds rhythmic momentum by increasing the wet mix and opening up the East Beast’s filter — a sort of refrain or peak moment in the piece.

Although my experience with the module is still fresh, its immediate musical response, flexibility, and sonic depth have inspired me from the very first patch.

About the module

Samarkanda is a four-channel digital delay with resampling, looping, reverse, and external sync capabilities.

It can behave like an analog-style delay (tape or BBD), or as a granular digital delay, with the ability to switch behavior independently per channel.

Each of the four delay lines features:

• Delay times from 0.5ms to 15s, or up to 60s in stacked mode.
• Reverse, hold (freezer), feedback control, and CV modulation.
• External clock sync with time division/multiplication (from 1:8 to 8:1).
• Voltage control over delay time, feedback, and mix.
• A default stacked routing for internal serial processing with no quality loss.

Samarkanda is designed not as a decorative FX module, but as a performance-ready delay instrument.

It can sound clean, precise, and reactive, but also chaotic, resonant, and saturated, depending on how far you push it.

Watch the piece

This piece is part of my project The Machine in the Botanical Garden. A full dedicated website is coming soon.

You can watch and listen to the full composition here