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.

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

Garden Tales: Concept Album with AI Vocals and Electronic-Orchestral Sound

 Garden Tales is the new album by The Machine in the Botanical Garden, and it’s now available in full on platforms like YouTube, Spotify, and iTunes. This project brings together seven tracks released over the past year, all set in a garden where fantastic things are always happening. Each song tells a story inspired by the characters who inhabit this mysterious and barely explored universe.

The music blends electronic sequences, classical string arrangements, and AI-generated vocals that perform lyrics and melodies entirely composed by me. Everything is written, created, and produced from a human sensibility, using technology as just another expressive tool. The result is a kind of symbiosis between the organic and the artificial, the emotional and the mechanical. Garden Tales is an invitation to listen with your eyes closed and let yourself be carried away by a sonic narrative that plays with the boundary between the natural and the synthetic, the ancient and the futuristic.

Listen to this album:

Spotify YouTube iTunes

Garden Tales: un jardín sonoro donde todo es posible

Garden Tales es el nuevo álbum de The Machine in the Botanical Garden, y ya puede escucharse completo en plataformas como YouTube, Spotify o iTunes. Este proyecto reúne siete canciones publicadas durante el último año, ambientadas en un jardín donde siempre ocurren cosas fantásticas. Cada tema cuenta una historia, inspirada en los personajes que habitan este universo misterioso y apenas explorado.

La música combina secuencias electrónicas, arreglos clásicos de cuerdas y voces generadas por inteligencia artificial, que interpretan letras y melodías compuestas íntegramente por mí. Todo está escrito, creado y producido desde una sensibilidad humana, utilizando la tecnología como una herramienta expresiva más. El resultado es una especie de simbiosis entre lo orgánico y lo artificial, lo emocional y lo mecánico. Garden Tales es una invitación a escuchar con los ojos cerrados y dejarse llevar por una narrativa sonora que juega con la frontera entre lo natural y lo sintético, lo antiguo y lo futuro.

Escucha este álbum: Garden Tales

The waltz of the crickets | The machine in the botanical garden

This work tells the story of a cricket who, instead of using his song for biological mating purposes, chooses to dedicate himself to art. With his melodies, produced by rubbing his wings, this cricket not only attracts other insects and animals but also faces criticism and skepticism from his contemporaries. His love for music leads him to found a school, inspiring a generation of cricket musicians who eventually form orchestras and revolutionize their world. This piece was composed for the project 'The Machine in the Botanical Garden.' Available on major digital platforms

She | Norand Mono MK2

She was born in the garden, able to see time as a single snapshot—past, present, and future in one coherent landscape. Some believe she's a spirit, others a magical being, or a creation of a machine. Yet, she's none of that and all of it and more. She's the soul of the garden, the breath that gives life to each second, the tireless engine that keeps it running. Her origins are unknown, possibly eternal. Nameless, yet embodying all names. She is harmony, peace, creativity, joy. When distant from her, these feelings wane. Meeting her, everything makes sense, confirming your intuition that everything is connected. The Norand Mono MK2 synthesizer and sequencer, alongside Sheena (Synthesizer V) and a string quartet, unfold a new tale set in this magical garden that blurs the edges of time. The interaction with the synthesizer alternates between programmed sequences and live performances. Sheena narrates the story of "She," the soul and essence that permeates every corner of the garden, while she is enveloped by a classical string quartet with counterpoints and harmonies crafted from the perspective of old tradition.

Bruno in the slow lane | sequential 960 | Sheena Synth V | Bastle Pizza & Ikarie

This track starts with a sequence created on a modular synthesizer, where the Behringer Sequencer Module 960, inspired by the legendary Moog 960 Sequential Controller, plays a key role. The melody flows from this synthesizer to the Bastl Pizza Oscillator, its unique character further shaped by the Ikarie filter, ending in the Strymon Star Lab module. The story unfolding in this song is performed by Sheena, using Synthesizer V technology, giving voice to Bruno, a peculiar beetle from our garden. Bruno always felt different, moving slower than the rest, which initially frustrated him. But over time, this slowness allowed him to appreciate details of the world that others overlooked. His life takes an unexpected turn when he falls in love with a unique orchid, marking the beginning of a new adventure. In addition to electronic sounds, the theme is enriched with arrangements for a classic string quartet, adding a layer of depth and emotion that elevates the story. Each note and arrangement have been carefully composed by me, with Sheena lending her voice to bring the narrative to life.

Samuel's Odyssey | Elektron Syntakt & Sheena & String Quartet

This is the story of Samuel the snail, who, while strolling through this magical garden like every morning, listening to the music of one of Elektron's machines accompanying Sheena's sweet voice alongside an old string quartet, came across a strange top hat. Upon entering it, he traveled to a fantasy world where he transcended his snail form and saw the world and reality as he had never seen it before. Samuel was never the same again.

Lullaby: East Beast Eurorack & Solaria | Emily Brontë's Lyrics

In 'The Machine in the Botanical Garden,' Solaria sings a lullaby for all the creatures of this mysterious garden. The lyrics were written two centuries ago by the middle Brontë sister. She is accompanied by a guitar, a string quartet, and one of the strange machines found in this park.

The Machine in the Botanical Garden: An Album of Synthesized Poetry and Musical Innovation

 Announcing the release of my new album for the project 'The Machine in the Botanical Garden.'

As with my previous work, this album is driven by sequences crafted with various machines, accompanied by musicalized poems written by 19th-century romantic female writers such as the Brontë sisters, Emily Dickinson, and George Elliot (Mary Ann Evans). Additionally, I have incorporated classical orchestral arrangements, mainly focusing on strings.

By blending the industrial sequences of the machine with its distinct raw and evocative character, I juxtapose it with the delicate emotional quality of melody, harmony, and traditional elaborated counterpoint.

The main machines used in this album include Elektron's Syntakt, Arturia's Microfreak, Cre8audio's East Beast and West Pest, as well as small modular systems featuring components from Makenoise, Noise Engineering, Erica Synth, among others.

The voices have been programmed using Synthesizer V, with Natalie and Solaria as the main interpreters.

This album is a sonic exploration that invites listeners to immerse themselves in the meeting point of past and present, where the timeless words of these remarkable female poets intertwine with the cutting-edge sounds of synthesizers. It's a harmonious convergence of technological innovation and artistic expression, bridging the gap between eras and genres. Through the ethereal vocals programmed with Synthesizer V, Natalie and Solaria breathe life into the poetic verses, infusing them with emotion and creating a captivating narrative that resonates with the listener's soul.

Spotify

YouTube Music

Musicalización del poema "Upon her soothing breast" de Emily Brontë

 

Nuevo trabajo para el proyecto que últimamente me tiene más absorbido: The Machine in the botanical garden.

Para este tema he musicalizado "Upon her soothing breast" de Emily Brontë. Este breve poema describe una escena de una madre que mece a su hijo en su regazo mientras observa la puesta de sol de invierno en el oeste. La imagen es descrita como una "gloria desoladora", lo que sugiere que hay algo bello en la escena, pero también una sensación de tristeza o melancolía. En general, el poema trata de la dualidad de la belleza y la tristeza, y cómo ambas emociones pueden coexistir en un momento dado.

La parte instrumental, como en todos los trabajos de este proyecto, esta realizada con la fusión de maquinas e instrumentos acústicos. En este caso un pequeño sistema modular y un cuarteto de cuerda.

Para la estructura de la canción, como se puede ver en el video, modifico el número de paso del secuenciador que ya tengo programado con ocho pasos que disparan la nota y la modulación del amplificador. Esto genera variaciones dentro del compás principal realmente inspiradoras.   

A cargo de la voz se encuentra la IA Natalie con su amplio registro y calidez.

Harp of wild and dream like strain

En este vídeo en el que combino la maquina syntakt con un cuarteto de cuerda clásico y la musicalización de un poema de Emily Brontë interpretado por Solaria, he utilizado la máquina de elektron principalmente como fuente de inspiración ya que solo he utilizado un par de sonidos con ella. El poema de Emily Bronte trata sobre el poder de la música para evocar recuerdos y emociones del pasado. El orador se dirige a un "arpa de tensión salvaje y onírica" y se pregunta por qué, cuando tocan sus cuerdas, la música hace que se repitan cosas olvidadas hace mucho tiempo.

 

Harp of wild and dream-like strain, 
When I touch thy strings, 
Why dost thou repeat again 
Long-forgotten things? 

Harp, in other, earlier days, 
I could sing to thee; 
And not one of all my lays 
Vexed my memory. 

But now, if I awake a note 
That gave me joy before, 
Sounds of sorrow from thee float, 
Changing evermore. 

Yet, still steeped in memory's dyes, 
They come sailing on, 
Darkening all my summer skies, 
Shutting out my sun.

Nuevo álbum con voces generadas por inteligencia artificial

 Hoy publico un nuevo álbum en las principales plataformas digitales con nueve temas compuestos por mi e interpretados por Solaria y Natalie, dos voces generadas por inteligencia artificial. Este álbum forma parte del proyecto "The machine in the botanical garden" que desarrollo desde el canal de youtube del mismo nombre y en el que combino el sonido crudo de maquinas y sintetizadores con instrumentos acusticos y voces melodicas. Las letras pertenecen a poemas de autoras del siglo XIX como Emily Brontë, Emily Dickinson o Mary Shelley. Pasado, presente y futuro se dan la mano. Espero que os guste. 

I Felt My Life with Both My Hands - Emily Dickinson and Elektron Syntakt

 En este video, presento una musicalización de un poema de Emily Dickinson para el proyecto The machine in the botanical garden, utilizando la máquina de Elektron, Syntakt, junto con las voces de Solaria y Natalie generadas a través de Synthesizer V. 

En vivo estoy utilizando principalmente cambios de patrones, desmuteados y activando modificadores como los "trig mods" y el "fill mode" propios de este tipo de máquina. 

Este poema de Emily Dickinson trata sobre la búsqueda de la propia identidad y la necesidad de validar la existencia personal. La autora describe cómo examina su propia vida y su ser en busca de pruebas tangibles de su existencia. El poema parece explorar la lucha interna de la autora por encontrar una sensación de certeza y autoafirmación en su propia existencia y su lugar en el mundo.

“ A cloud withdrew from the sky“ - The machine in the botanical garden

 En este vídeo le he puesto música al poema de Emily Dickinson "A cloud withdrew from the sky" que es cantado por la maravillosa voz de Natalie. Creé la composición con una mezcla de sonidos analógicos y digitales de mi sintetizador modular y una guitarra acústica, tratando de combinar lo clásico con lo moderno como siempre hago en estos videos. El poema trata sobre la pérdida de algo valioso representado por una nube que desaparece del cielo. El autor lamenta que la nube y todo lo que representa se hayan perdido para siempre. El poema reflexiona sobre la idea de que algunas experiencias son fugaces y se pierden para siempre a menos que sean capturadas a través de la memoria o la contemplación. El poema también sugiere una búsqueda de la trascendencia y la eternidad como una forma de superar la pérdida de lo precioso y valioso. Espero que disfrutes de esta combinación de sonidos sintéticos y poesía, y si tienes alguna pregunta o curiosidad, no dudes en comentar.

Mary Shelley junto a Polyend/Dreadbox Medusa y la voz de Solaria - “Oh listen while I sing to thee”

Nuevo trabajo para el proyecto “The machine in the botanical garden”, que llevo intención de mantener  muy activo en las próximas semanas. En esta ocasión se trata de la musicalización de un poema de la fantástica Mary Shelley cuya parte instrumental he interpretado con una de mis máquinas favoritas: el sintetizador Medusa de los chicos de Polyend y Dreadbox. La interpretación vocal corre a cargo de Solaria y como es habitual en este proyecto he añadido algunos sencillos arreglos para cuarteto de cuerda.

Oh listen while I sing to thee,
My song is meant for thee alone;
My thought imparts its melody,
And gives the soft impassioned tone.

I sing of joy, and see thy smile
That to the swelling note replies;
I sing of love, and feel the while
The gaze of thy love-beaming eyes.

If thou wert far, my voice would die
In murmurs faint and sorrowing;
If thou wert fake—in agony
My heart would break, I could not sing.

Then listen while I sing to thee,
My song is meant for thee alone;
And now that thou art near to me
I pour a full impassioned tone.