Aminita Satori: “Back to the Stars We Go” – attempting to bring emotion to the soul!

Aminita Satori is an ex advertising jingle writer from Chicago, IL, who left the business due to inner artistic dilemmas. After a long absence from music, became inspired by the likes of Terence McKenna, Alan Watts, and Bill Hicks. He released his debut album, “Where Language Fails” in March of 2015, and has now followed that up with the brand new 8-track album, “Back to the Stars We Go”. And it is another home run. If you are a fan of electronic music that demands the full listening experience, then give this a try. Aminita Satori has taken his own sound and has grown with each release.

This album is aptly named, as when you listen to it, you feel like you are about to depart whatever mundaneity you face and set off for a comfortingly distant world without too much thought but a lot of emotion. From the first time I listened to the opening piece of “Back to the Stars We Go”, I knew that Aminita Satori had again released something amazing. The layering and depth of the songs is immaculately done. Starting out the album with “The Way” just pulls me right in every time. This is one of the most riveting and hauntingly beautiful pieces of music I’ve ever had the pleasure of listening to recently.

When your music is instrumental, and above all, electronic, you need to make sure it’s compelling, and this effort is nothing short of compelling. While Aminita Satori isn’t exactly trying to break new ground, “Back to the Stars We Go” rumbles by like a cold draft coming in through a slightly open window, or like a tiny shift in the atmosphere. Each song feels like it’s attempting to bring emotion to the soul. Satori has succeeded in crafting a remarkable electronic album, both in terms of songwriting and in sonic architecture. The title track features an array of scintillating sounds, such as strings, keyboards, percussion, drums and horns.

The music transcends the simple listening to pleasant sounds that most recordings instrumental evoke. Rather, “Back to the Stars We Go” reaches into your psyche and affirms you. This album combines exceptional, interesting, stylistically disparate tunes, luscious electronic orchestration, unrelenting drive and an uncanny sense of artistic unity. The ingredients are put together with a masterly finesse – bass and drums mainline straight into the bloodstream while the fantastically diverse textures and melodies infect the brain like a recurring dream on “Flying” and “Salvation”.

Even when Aminita Satori is not trying to tear the walls down with his infectious ambient arrangements, he displays the kind of virtuosity that’s hard to find these days, at least in such a consistent but versatile way. If you’re one of those people who suspect that electronic music has no soul, the two best tracks on is this album, in my opinion – “Always With You” and “Buddha Blues” – will change your mind. But perhaps the most astonishing thing about this album is the way that it manages to be extremely immediate. And I hate to end this saying, “You just have to hear it for yourself.” But you do. You just really, really do.