On their latest release, Ap Ducal sculpts sound into a vast, commanding catalyst.
Ap Ducal, the solo project of Santiago-based artist Camilo Palma, is reprogramming the way we experience music. From reimagined record structures, to thematics and composition, this release deconstructs music into a voluminous, shifting landscape, rebuilding from the base upwards.
Palma does this with exquisite attention to detail on their latest album, D. The dual-record is a masterpiece in diversity, from its rich textures, to its atmospheric nuances, and rhythm phasing. These aren’t albums to be appreciated in passing, however. Give yourself some time to dissolve into the intricate world Ap Ducal has created.
Palma’s current approach feels visionary. Split across two separate records, the artist builds the macrocosm and nuances in the first part before expanding on them with greater detail in the second.
D1 gradually constructs a foundation with hollowed, wistful beats, expressing a sense of genesis, origin, rebirth. Here we are carried through dark, velvety textures lulling us further into Ap Ducal’s soundscape.
With D2, this sonic journey slowly flowers into growth and decay, captured through soft, metallic wavelengths. The result is a transversive interpretation on the edges of ambience with faint echoes of dark techno.
Credits
Camilo Palma: Synths, drum machine, guitar, sequences
Mix: Camilo Palma
Master: Pablo Infante aka Pol del Sur
Album Art: Trinidad Davanzo aka Common Things
Released 3rd December 2020 on Weisskalt: a non-binary operated, underground record label, currently located in Newtown, Sydney.
