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Oksana Linde — Travesías
(Buh Records BR183, 2025, LP)

by Peter Thelen, Published 2025-03-09

Travesías Cover art

A couple years back we published a review of Aquatic and Other Worlds (1983-1989) by Venezuelan composer and keyboardist Oksana Linde; at that point her work had remained largely unpublished, save for a few pieces that had appeared on Various Artist compilations of electronic music. What the aforementioned LP showed the world was that Linde’s work deserved further attention, and now at the age of 77, another collection of archived compositions and performances has been released, featuring pieces created in her private studio between 1986 and 1994, and meticulously transferred from cassette tapes; how many more pieces are hiding away in her archive we may never know, but hopefully she will share them with the world at some point in the future. In February 1991 Linde presented the show Travesía Acuastral (Aqua-Astral Journey) at Casa Rómulo Gallegos, a part of the Third Encounter of New Electronic Music, a significant event in forging an experimental electronic music scene in Venezuela. Three of the pieces on Travesías were composed especially for that show — “Mundos Flotantes” (“Floating Worlds”), “Horizontes Lejanos” (“Distant Horizons”), and “Arrecifes en el Espacio” (“Reefs in Space”), all presented on side one of the album at hand, with “Mundo Flotantes” being especially beautiful, dreamy, and deep. “Horizontes Lejanos” features some subtle voices in the background, first noticeable in the beginning and then again at several points onward to its conclusion. Four pieces, including side one opener “Luciérnagas en los Manglares” (“Fireflies among the Mangroves”), “Kerepakupai Vena,” “Estrellas I,” and “Estrellas II” were composed for meditation purposes as she recovered from the health issues that led to her abandonment of a career as a research chemist; they tend to have a lighter, more melodic feel, though “Kerepakupai Vena,” with its grand sweeping chords will make the walls shake. Finally, there is the grand epic “Sahara,” a powerful piece almost ten minutes in length that washes over the listener leaving a sense of sparkling beauty. This is definitely electronic music that exists outside the realms of what might normally be expected, with little similarity to the European electronic scenes, but at the same time not so wildly experimental to be offputting to a casual listener. LP is limited to 500 copies.

Filed under: Archives, 2025 releases

Related artist(s): Oksana Linde

More info
http://buhrecords.bandcamp.com/album/traves-as

 

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