Michael William Gilbert grew up in Connecticut and Brussels, Belgium. Gilbert has been composing and recording actively since the 1970’s with the goal of humanizing electronic music and using guitar, wooden flutes, percussion, and voice to complement synthesized sounds and textures. His compositions encompass many styles and sounds such as: world, jazz, contemporary classical, and influences from multicultural folk music. Gilbert’s new release, Radio Omnibus is full of cutting edge electronic music, two acoustic chamber pieces, and features collaborations with Adam Holzman (Miles Davis, Steven Wilson) and Mark Walker (Oregon, Lyle Mays). Many of the electronic sounds heard on this album are made using the µBraids, a Eurorack voltage-controlled digital oscillator/sound source developed and marketed by MW Gilbert and Daniel Gilbert. Gilbert retired from an almost 30-year career as Adviser for Technology Initiatives and Services for the University of Massachusetts Amherst, having engaged in research on Internet media technologies, mobile devices, virtual teaching, strategic planning, and developing/supporting Internet and technology cloud services to the campus and community. Radio Omnibus is an album steeped in incredible feelings and passions that melds the sounds of ambient, experimental, and drone, with jazz, classical and world giving you an album that will move your senses. That’s the short of it!
Positives:
A unique and organic approach to electronic generated music that is natural in its feel, flow and sound. A nice variety of styles and moods.
Bottom Line:
Every track on Radio Omnibus has immense soundscapes and creative compositional and orchestrated colors. Gilbert’s music is lyrically sharp, and the programming is superb, giving the listener an experience that is unmatched in the electronic, world and jazz field. The compositions feature the Four for Music SSO’s acoustic instruments along with Gilbert’s electronic sounds, for a vast sonic experience that focuses on how natural his “sounds” really are, and how they naturally blend with a chamber orchestra. Electronic based music has come a long way in its natural soundscape, but Gilbert takes this meaning to a whole new level, almost creating a more human experience in the more oft digitized cold world of electronic music. Electronic musicians out there, this is a lesson in what EM should sound like, learn from a master.