Alejandro Bento is a multi-instrumentalist and composer born in Spain and currently based in the coastal town of Javea. Though he is self-taught as a pianist, Alejandro, the son of Argentinian artist Oscar Bento, was traditionally trained in music from a young age. After taking up a variety of instruments in conservatory, he went on to study sound engineering and work with electronic music. Until now there has been a clear separation between the solo piano work he has released under his own name and his electronic music output under the alias of Alex Toben. It is under that moniker that Bento has chosen to bring those two worlds together for his full-length debut entitled Orbit to be released on San Francisco’s Subtempo Records. The album was created in its entirety during the coronavirus quarantine and ponders the incongruity of the restricted movement to which we have all been subjected while the planet we live on continues to hurtle around the sun as rapidly as ever.
“Not being able to leave home and the thought of moving at great speed, in orbit… the mystery of these scientific concepts and our current circumstances are as mysterious as life itself.” — Alejandro Bento
The piano is the focal point of the album, but is joined & embellished by synths, textures, and pads with an emphasis on polyrhythms, syncopation, and contrasting melodic voices. The tender beauty of pieces like “Aligned” and “Birth” are juxtaposed with shimmering light dances such as “Planets” or the title track, cinematic vignettes like “Off the Grid”, and jazz-inflected blues excursions such as “Care” or “Blue”. Orbit is a vibrant album of shifting moods and colors that is ultimately hopeful and comforting in its nature. In this exclusive preview, you can enjoy a stream of the full album before its release tomorrow.
Pre-Order: https://axeltoben.bandcamp.com/album/orbit
Orbit will be available as a digital release beginning June 19, 2020. The album was mastered by Vince Villuis aka AES Dana and features cover art by Rocco Tyndale.
Stationary Travels 