Equatorial - Secret Gardens

​Equatorial

Secret Gardens
self-released; 2025

​​By ​Dino DiMuro​​​
​

Equatorial is the digital recording project of one Robert Dilemma of Houston, Texas. I wouldn't expect a guy with that name or this cool trance music to come from Houston, but why not! Secret Gardens is the second collection by Equatorial since 2021's "Lost Horizon" and just like that album, this one features four atmospheric tracks that "although they are electronica, still possess a certain organic quality." Dilemma says the album title "relates to my considering my pieces as cultivated gardens of sounds, patterns and rhythms, the musical ideas like seeds developing & intertwining among each other in careful arrangements."

Dilemma's background is in classical and avant-garde music, punk and art rock. He records under several different names and projects, including The Soft Parts which I previously reviewed (and I also made the crack about Houston then!). Regarding that release I stated: "I often feel guilty spacing out to someone’s musical creation, but you can do that with Dilemma’s music with zero guilt!" And that's exactly how I felt playing this album. At times I'd be at full attention, while at others I'd zone out into a meditative state. Dilemma sees himself as an artist like Brian Eno; not an instrumental virtuoso but more of a sonic painter and experimenter using the DAW as his canvas. He also draws inspiration from the German electronic bands like Can and (I assume) Kraftwerk, along with IDM groups like Boards of Canada and the "jigsaw interlocking contrapuntal style of Gentle Giant." There's also a strong Asian and Middle Eastern component that I picked up on without being told. 

Dilemma introduces "Among the Shadows of the Dervishes" as "a dense turbulent IDM track suffused with Mideastern mystique. The propulsive bass riff running throughout gives a feeling of spinning with increasing intensity, until a point of breakthrough into another realm occurs." If you've ever seen a whirling dervish, you'll get the idea. This track has an otherworldly aura, and is quite hypnotic even though right on the edge of dissonance. Hearing it a third time I'm noticing a lot more detail, while the first couple times I let the music fill my background space without a critical ear. I did notice that the track stays within the same parameters for almost 11 minutes before Dilemma finally changes to a more uplifting vibe with echoes of Japanese music. 


"Chirico Street" is named after the surrealist artist Girogio de Chirico and is "a foray into hypnotic techno, pervaded with a dark sense of threat, akin perhaps to the paintings of the titular surrealist artist." This track is indeed a bit heavier on the dark atmospherics while not ignoring the power of steady beats and patterns. I noted more obvious movement much earlier in this track (stops and starts, key and pattern changes). Here's a reference nobody will get: about six minutes in, Dilemma's music began to suggest the background music for "The Untouchables" by the great Nelson Riddle. That's also around where Dilemma introduces a very humanoid-sounding patch that seems to be communicating in an alien tongue.
  

"Spring River in the Flower Moon Night" has the longest title but is the shortest track (just four minutes) and is called "an impressionistic IDM rendering of a traditional Chinese melody (Chun Jiang Hua Yue Ye)." The Asian flavor is certainly strongest here, with a kind of Blade Runner overlay. The final track is a 20-minute epic titled  

"The Overland Route." Though I'd love to think this is a reference to the famous Overland Blvd. in Los Angeles, it's actually meant to "give the feeling of passing through various regions within an overarching landscape. It's structured as a kind of triptych where beats sections alternate with beat-less ones, as if one comes upon a vista into which one then continues, arriving finally at an uncertain destination." That's a great description as this track, more than the others, really goes through some changes when you least expect them. It's highly cinematic, spacey and intricate all at once. The beat is very train-like.

If you like to float away with your music, Equatorial might be your ticket. Recommended!

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