Lisa Bella Donna - Electronic Voyages (2022)

"Darken the room...

Get your headphones on, buckle up and get ready for the journey...

Something about Lisa Bella Donna’s work evokes travel for me. Certainly there's the name of this album, Electronic Voyages, but it is the essence of much of the music I’ve heard from this talented artist that lends the idea of transformative journeys.

Lisa Bella Donna entered my life in 2019 when I experienced the recent loss of my father; Alan R. Pearlman, one of the creators of many of Lisa’s instruments of choice. While I was previously unaware of her music, it immediately became clear we were speaking the same language. It was also equally clear that I had just met an incredible tour guide of new sonic adventures. It was the beginning of an ongoing conversation I cherish.

My own early years were infused with eclectic exposures and explorations of rock, classical, jazz, metal, world music, soundscapes, punk, techno et al. But after Lisa reached out to me, a new world emerged. Not only her own beautiful work, but a vast network of artists that I was previously unaware of: Pauline Anna Strom, Beverly De-Fries D'Albert, Zanov and Carmen to name a few. We share this varied love of music. Lisa finds value from pop-songs to thrash-metal, be-bop to Buxtehude. Maybe that’s why her music speaks to such a wide range of tastes.

Lisa’s training as a multi-instrumentalist cannot be overlooked. The Sonic Sorceress has extensive experience composing and recording using traditional guitar, drums and bass as well as the keyboards and synthesizers she is most known for these days. She is a professional musician with a daunting list of skills.

Her own eclectic taste and experience is evident in her synthesizer work. Strings, pulsating percussives and haunting drones weave into a tapestry of sound. The sequencers are arpeggios on the wings of space-age angels. The compositions are symphonic. She is taking multi-instrumentalism to the next level: composer, conductor, performer, engineer and producer combined in concert.

Electronic Voyages showcases some of what Lisa’s most recent work does best: coupling ARP and Moog synthesizers, extensive analog and digital recording techniques, and a mastery of modular synthesis. Her symphony orchestra, rather than violins, oboes, timpani and flute, include a mammoth Moog Modular System, a Moog One, ARP 2600, and ARP String Ensemble; all recorded in performance to magnetic tape. Implementing Otari, and Fostex tape machines.

I recommend listening in its entirety at your first sitting. The four pieces feel purposeful in their order and connection:

Double-Image is a pure, immersive sensory adventure. Sweeping panoramas, imagery of planetary revolutions hovering just above the Karman line or flying low over the Appalachian landscape; paramount to her creative process. Despite the expansiveness of these visions, there are elements of intimacy: YOU are in the spaceship with her.

Inner Space follows in the itinerary. Lisa brings us down to earth. There is a suggestion of classical bubbling just beneath the surface. The sequencers seem to have a slight baroque-like harpsichord reference before Lisa turns on the bright and optimistic lights of dawn; ARP strings singing over a space-age pulse. This track is uplifting, shape-shifting between the spacious, cascading counterpoint of the sequencers.

Metempsychosis is a meditative dreamscape. A circle of elders drone behind ceremonial layers proclaiming the dawn of a new age. Lisa’s penchant for nature is conjured in this piece; embers burning in an earthly fire as the celestial night opens up above. An ever-unfolding transcendental mirage.

Cosmotopia literally vibrates with intensity; dense sound washes over the listener in waves like the visuals of the aurora borealis. What’s interesting is the string-like waves offer a subtle feeling of inner quiet woven into the near wall of sound. Transported peacefully, through the celestial gates of time and space.

Maybe this is the hidden truth behind Lisa Bella Donna’ music: there is peace inside the vast, sonic boom; if you listen..."