Album Review: Sailing On The Light Of A Passing Star

Sailing On The Light Of A Passing Star is a beautifully crafted album of song meets symphony atmospheric ballads executed by a master composer, multi instrumental talent and introspective lyricist.

But….

While there is much more to say about Levi Patels new album, and i will, while doing some background on him i kept seeing ‘exhibited robot guitar at New York Museum’ mentioned as one of Levi’s recent projects, which, as a muso and science nerd myself i had to know more about. Though not necessarily inaccurate ‘exhibited robot guitar’ hardly does justice to the collaborative project in which Levi combined his education in tech with his knowledge of sound and composition to design and build a range of musical robots which he then performed a duet with live accompanying the cybernetic progeny himself on keys. Oh and yeah, turns out the audience also just happened to be made up largely of the deaf community who had been provided with bleeding edge haptic bodysuits sensitive enough to utilize dispersed vibration to translate the complex harmonic frequencies of music into an intense somatic experience that captures the nuance and poetry of music in a way normally inaccessible to the hard of hearing.

In true Kiwi fashion when talking about it Levi casually describes the project with the kind of nonchalant attitude more akin to someone talking about the brick pizza oven they built in their backyard rather than the phenomenal technological and creative achievement this is. He has composed music for a deaf audience, who he performed live to with a band of robotic musicians he designed and built in his spare time with his friends, and i just think more people need to know that.

When he’s not busy building robots, tied up scoring a film or hanging out at skywalker ranch with the world’s premier sound nerds Levi has released multiple EPs and albums that, over the last 10 years, have established him as a leading figure in the world of electro symphonic instrumental composition, alongside NZ contemporaries like Ed Zuccollo, Module and Rhian Sheehan.

Sailing On The Light Of A Passing Star is the latest album release from Levi, and due to its departure from the instrumental atmospheric nature of his previous work it has the feeling of a debut album from an entirely new artist. Instead of painting a landscape this feels more like a self-portrait, the songs are intimate and personal and sung with a vulnerability that sees Levi step out from behind the curtain and bare his creative soul raw to the world.

Though there are stylistic elements that carry on from his previous releases, including a fully instrumental ethereal track called Afterglow. Levi enters into new territory with songs like Two Birds, Atmosphere of Glass and the single Gravity where he blends a familiar kind of guitar or piano led singer songwriter ballad, reminiscent of OpShop or The Feelers, with layered composition and orchestral strings that add a sense of grandeur and emphasize the melancholic optimism that forms the emotional centre of the album. Released as a video incorporating footage from his recent stay in rural China the single Gravity went viral striking a chord with the locals and leading to a flood of support and emails, which though in mandarin, Levi was able to read as in his spare time he had been learning the language and so was able to connect with his new international audience in a direct and personal way.

I was honestly surprised that i had not heard more about Levi Patel, his contributions not just to music but to the creative and technological footprint of New Zealand are nothing short of prolific, but after the success of this newest album and his unrelenting creative drive and work ethic i expect that his is a name that will no doubt one day sit comfortably alongside the ever growing list of Kiwis who humbly go on to impact the world in a way that makes us all proud to be from the land of the long white clouds.