Australis is the name for the

Utah Utah ( , ) is a state in the Mountain West subregion of the Western United States. Utah is a landlocked U.S. state bordered to its east by Colorado, to its northeast by Wyoming, to its north by Idaho, to its south by Arizona, and to it ...

based electronic new age musical project by multifaceted Peruvian-born composer/producer Oscar Aguayo, although this name is often used to refer to him directly.
He named his project "Australis" (which in Latin literally means "from the South") because that word symbolizes his origins and the places where he received his primary musical influences.

History

Australis was officially created as a musical project in the U.S. in August 2004. In January 2005, he won the "2004 Morpheus Music's Best Independent Artist" award with material released only to selected online radio stations.
His debut album " Lifegiving" was independently released in May 2005.
By early 2006 " Lifegiving" was re-released in Southern Asia by th
Orange Music record label
In August 2006 two tracks from Australis' debut album " Lifegiving" were included in the New Vibes Music's compilatio
Echoes of Tuvalu

Work for Australis' second album, " The Gates of Reality", was announced in August 2005, and almost two years later in February 2007 two of its tracks were included in the audio compact disc accompanying th
last issue (#16)
of the now defunct Netherlandic publication "E-dition Magazine", despite the fact that the album was not yet released at the time.
" The Gates of Reality" was released in November 2008 under the labe
Essential Noises

On June 13, 2009, Australis' official website announced work for a third release has started. The upcoming album's temporary title was "Human Genus". In early July 2010 its official title was announced as "Sentient Genus".
" Sentient Genus" was released in November 2010 under the labe
Essential Noises

Musical style

Under the wider

new age New Age is a range of spiritual or religious practices and beliefs which rapidly grew in Western society during the early 1970s. Its highly eclectic and unsystematic structure makes a precise definition difficult. Although many scholars conside ...

genre, Australis' music styles include

Ambient music Ambient music is a genre of music that emphasizes tone and atmosphere over traditional musical structure or rhythm. It may lack net composition, beat, or structured melody.The Ambient Century by Mark Prendergast, Bloomsbury, London, 2003. It u ...

, World music,

Electronic music Electronic music is a genre of music that employs electronic musical instruments, digital instruments, or circuitry-based music technology in its creation. It includes both music made using electronic and electromechanical means ( electroac ...

Ethnic music Folk music is a music genre that includes traditional folk music and the contemporary genre that evolved from the former during the 20th-century folk revival. Some types of folk music may be called world music. Traditional folk music has b ...

Symphonic A symphony is an extended musical composition in Western classical music, most often for orchestra. Although the term has had many meanings from its origins in the ancient Greek era, by the late 18th century the word had taken on the meaning com ...

music and

Soundtrack A soundtrack is recorded music accompanying and synchronised to the images of a motion picture, drama, book, television program, radio program, or video game; a commercially released soundtrack album of music as featured in the soundtrack o ...

. Among other adjectives, his musical signature has been described as melodic, intense, contagious, emotional and meaningful. Australis' style is characterized by very rich instrumentation present even in his most simplistic pieces: very melodic and clearly defined leads built over solid tonal bases (consisting of deep evolving pads or full orchestral arrangements), along with engaging rhythms, often ethnically influenced. Instrumentally, Australis' music uses the expected electronic synthesizers and samplers, bringing unusual and interesting sound effects to blend with the main musical body. However, much of his material also exhibits classical instruments which include piano, strings (solos and ensembles) and winds (clarinets, oboes, etc.). Additionally, he also includes exotic instruments for his more ethnic material: native winds and strings ( zampona,

charango The charango is a small Andean stringed instrument of the lute family, from the Quechua and Aymara populations in the territory of the Altiplano in post-Colonial times, after European stringed instruments were introduced by the Spanish during c ...

) from the Andes regions of South America, and also from the Middle East (

zurna The zurna (Armenian language, Armenian: զուռնա zuṙna; Classical Armenian, Old Armenian: սուռնայ suṙnay; Albanian language, Albanian: surle/surla; Persian language, Persian: karna/Kornay/surnay; Macedonian language, Macedonian: з ...

darbouka The goblet drum (also chalice drum, tarabuka, tarabaki, darbuka, darabuka, derbake, debuka, doumbek, dumbec, dumbeg, dumbelek, toumperleki, tumbak, or zerbaghali; arz, دربوكة / ALA-LC romanization, Romanized: ) is a single-head membrano ...

, etc.).
Another interesting characteristic of Australis' music is the dissimilar styles he explores and compiles in his discs. For example, the album " Lifegiving" starts with a very soft, relaxing, nature-driven title track; but the second track carries a completely different more electronic flavor. Then the third track comes and it has yet another color that falls into the category of dramatic soundtrack. Later on the disc other styles are also represented, including quasi-techno-dance "Fire Tamer", classic orchestra "The Enchantment", and the ethnic "Sacred Earth".
According to an interview he did fo
Lost Frontier
late 2005, this gathering of styles is a consequence of the messages he is trying to convey through his music: "''I don't pay as much attention to styles as to the messages I am trying to communicate''."
The release of Australis' second and third albums, strengthens this feature. They comprise a wide range of styles that go from the purely electronic, to the ethnic, to the epic.

Discography

Released works

* 2005 – '' Lifegiving'' * 2008 – '' The Gates of Reality'' * 2010 – '' Sentient Genus'' * 2014 – ''

Adrift Adrift may refer to: Media * Adrift (band), a Tampa, Florida-based American heavy rock band * ''Adrift'' (video game), a first-person adventure video game * "Adrift", a song by God Is an Astronaut from the album '' Ghost Tapes #10'' Film * ''A ...

'' * 2019 – ''

One of Ours ''One of Ours'' is a 1922 novel by Willa Cather that won the 1923 Pulitzer Prize for the Novel. It tells the story of the life of Claude Wheeler, a Nebraska native in the first decades of the 20th century. The son of a successful farmer and an in ...

Contributions

# '
Echoes of Tuvalu
'' (Compilation, various artists – August 2006) # '
E-dition CD Sampler
'' (Compilation, various artists – February 2007)

References

Australis' Official site

Lost Frontier

External links

Australis' Official site

New Vibes Music record label

Essential Noises record label

Echoes of Tuvalu compilation

{{DEFAULTSORT:Australis New-age music groups American ambient music groups American instrumental musical groups Electronic music groups from Utah American world music groups Musical groups established in 2004 2004 establishments in Utah