Floating across the empty ocean of sound, Gianfranco Malorgio’s "The Sleeping Whale" is an entrancing electronic work craning into the heavens like a dream unfolding in slow motion. The piece is a story through the underbelly of an imagined world that begs to be realized on the big screen with a cinematic soul at its center.
"The Sleeping Whale" wraps the listener into a rich, atmospheric soundscape that suggests the weightless drift of deep-sea exploration. There are gentle pulses of synth and ambient textures that take on an almost hypnotic quality, as though we are threading through the sleepy, enigmatic underbelly of a sleeping giant who lies just under the waves. Every sound choice is placed with painstaking care, because Ghiblian sounds are still epic, in the way that fantasy film scores are epic.
Malorgio’s writing simply relate a story, but draws the listener into it. The rise and fall of the music, its swells and diminuendos, imitates the pulse of something old and still living. It’s a piece that could comfortably underscore a breathtaking cinematic passage, the collision of wonder and mystery in the darkness of the unknown.
Whether meant for some future cinematic realization or existing as its own enthralling sonic tapestry, The Sleeping Whale demonstrates Malorgio’s talent for musical material that exceeds its trappings.
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