A complete, separate sentence begins the journey of a conceptual album. In the translucent sonority, something percussive, and in the melody undulating towards repose, the inspiration of the work is manifested. It is water; in itself, in its role for life to thrive, in its subjection to those who have it. Moments later, on Life Cycles, H2O’s opening track, melody and harmony come together. The anticipation that precedes them highlights how symbolic, and crucial, the passage is. In it, patterns begin to emerge, intertwine and recur. The rhythm flourishes, broadly speaking, from the oscillations at the core of the note to what exceeds the bar. These are the cycles of music, a metaphor for the cycles that depend on water, those of life.

Corciolli casts his gaze on the theme of H2O; he raises it from the essence of the sound language. In it, nothing is really extramusical. The eight-movement suite that composes the album revisits important legacies of electronic music, inspired by orchestral sonorities produced by Isao Tomita (1932-2016), Vangelis (1943-2022), and exponents of the so-called Berlin School, such as Klaus Schulze (1947-2022).

In the polyphony to be delineated in the 3rd movement, Méduse, there is a game of diaphanous layers that separate and interpenetrate – in the manner of the marine creature with transparent tentacles that mutually cross each other’s paths. On frozen lands, whose melting threatens the atmosphere, the dramaticity of Permafrost rises already in the menacing tones that announces it and is completed with echoes, suggesting voices, alluding to the agents of environmental misfortune. The union between suite and conceptual album highlights the trait they have in common: the greater whole resulting from the parts. Each movement of H2O is complete in itself; something else, however, emerges when listening to them in sequence, from beginning to end.

Released on March 22nd, World Water Day, the work is a permanent invitation to reflect on our environmental and humanitarian responsibilities. What is, in fact, our role in the cycles of life?

Text: Daniel Bento – @enxerguemusica