Product Description
BODY
02 The Truth Lies Beyond
03 Invisible River
04 Light Passage
05 Domino
06 The Smell of Twilight
07 Warm Embrace
Genres: Dreamscape, Ambient, Introspective, Meditative, Dreamy, Atmospheric
jarguna is Italian sonic-alchemist Marco Billi, and The Truth Lies Beyond is his 54th album. The kaleidoscopic shimmering, luminous electronics open up a space for dreamy contemplation. Where jarguna’s releases often take a drone or ethnic-organic approach, this 72-minute album fits within Projekt’s classic deep-space and ambient realms. Floating down a river, looking to the heavens, reflecting on the stars and the truth that lies just outside one’s grasp, the listener is drawn deep into a world of bold beauty and timeless grace. Within the flashes of insight are two tracks that dance upon electronic rhythms.
“Ambient music,” Marco reflects, “taken in its depths unleashes a wind that raises dust within us, becoming a portal to glimpse a higher awareness.”
Marco continues:
The Truth Lies Beyond is an ascent to awareness, a river of energy heading toward a mouth, the sea of consciousness. The tracks are meant to be a representation of this internal path. The opening inner path is a pulsation, like a flickering light, or like an old neon light that can’t turn on: for a moment it illuminates and shows you a path and the next moment total darkness. I imagine it as a cascade of nerve impulses radiating all connections, neuro-transmitters like the tree of life unfolding upward.
Monophonic circuits extend a melody as in an enchanted tape with a succession of fragmented and complex rhythms handled by granular effects and fleets of delays. “Invisible River” and “The Smell of Twilight” are slower and calmer passages, the light loops hidden among carpets and a voice in the distance that calls and invites to deep stillness (I thank Chiara Sgreva for allowing to manipulate and use her voice). In “The Truth Lies Beyond” and “Domino” we find two tracks cadenced by sequences and light electronics percussion. The rhythmic and melodic variations, first slow and rarefied, then tumultuous and laden with pathos, ambiguous instruments, one moment sounding like a handpan and the next like a string instrument, then woodwinds; The sounds are constantly changing, your mind stays in the moment In these two tracks with percussion. I wanted to represent the heartbeat, overall a fluid and organic rhythm.
Geometry becomes sound while it dances pulsating between matter and the astral dimension. Sound becomes geometry that structures matter like a mandala of sand or water, water that transforms into its container. Bruce Lee would have said, “Be like water that transforms and adapts to all situations.” I say, “Be sound because matter is light and vibration.”
Ambient music, in its macro genre, is not just a moment of entertainment and is often overvalued, but taken in its depths it must unleash a wind that raises dust within us or the representation of emotional blocks, traumas, in more remote corners of our inaccessible psyche, becoming a portal to communicate or see, already glimpsing is a good result, to a higher awareness. Therefore I believe, if listened to well this genre can also be medicine.
Reviews Editor –
From Star’s End
Rather than change The World, why not collaborate with it? That is what Marco Billi seems to be doing with his beautiful work under the name jarguna. A fine exemplar for the art of hearing, listening and receiving The Truth Lies Beyond (72:04) pushes his sound outward, all the while delving deeper inward. Brimming with moments of self-discovery its seven tracks of electronic entanglement are perfectly correlated and calibrated to illuminate obscure realms of experience. Psychologically loaded beneath a calming chill the goal of The Truth Lies Beyond is not to find an answer, or to reach some distant point on the horizon, it is to continually experiment and explore, reflect and refine whatever designs emerge from the creative process.
In complex calculations of texture, timbre and tone the electric charge of the synthesizer is carefully considered, while a stimulating range of voices, chimes, bells and registers of the land give this album’s emotional peaks more import and impact. The soundfield becomes energized as seductive percussion runs rise and shift the shape and pace of the pulse. Once out in the air soft drumming provides an unexpected depth – relieving feelings of being trapped in one’s own mind. Throughout its run, this release remains rich with beauty, yet occasionally skews strange just enough to let in flashes of the new and eccentric. There is no one moment that breaks the sonic spell, only those that allow us to sink deeper into the labyrinth of thought. And so as we complete our journey with The Truth Lies Beyond we find the encounter has only deepened the mystery of this uncommon and accomplished artist. -Chuck van Zyl
Reviews Editor –
From Exposé
Jarguna is the nom-de-plume of Italian composer, sound sculptor and multi-instrumentalist Marco Billi, who since his debut, Introspective Course in 2006, has released somewhere between 50 and 60 albums. With that, one may be asking the question “Where do I begin?” A couple years ago Jarguna released a 50-track collection as his then-50th release titled Retrospective of Deep Days, containing one song from each of those, with many of those clocking in at ten minutes or longer, only a few of which are excerpts. It’s a full eight hours long, and one may want to start there.
But he hasn’t stopped at 50, and continues producing outstanding recordings of immersive ambient, minimalist instrumental music, with each one seemingly building on the strengths of all those before it. Take for example, his latest album, The Truth Lies Beyond, released in April 2025 on Projekt Archive, which is much like a descent into a warm water pool of kaleidoscopic colors, with the listener slowly absorbing every star in the night sky. The sounds ripple and shimmer, shadows and lights grow, fade and erase, at times one may hear a cadence created by drums or other instruments, other times magnificent sounds just float in a pure heavenly cosmic wave.
Touches of world sounds, like zither, santoor, woodwinds, bowed strings, and Tibetan bells often intertwine with sounds presumably made by synthesizers, captivating the listener as each piece progresses along a seasoned tranquil path, never harsh or abrasive, but never pretty and new-agey either, instead filled with ever-evolving textures that reflect iridescent colors and fill listener with a strong sense of well being, a ubiquitous life force that opens the mind and spirit. There are seven tracks here, and the opener “Illumination Ganglia” seems to rise from the depths and introduce a spectrum of curious sounds all at once; don’t even try and figure out how they were made, just adjust the headphone levels to your comfort and enjoy what’s there. The title track is even more mysterious and subtle, like a midnight walk in the forest. “The Smell of Twilight” stretches the imagination in many directions, where gentle melodic ribbons of color and angelic voices all come together in a calm diffusion. Every moment herein is like a dream to be savored and experienced in full. -Peter Thelen