The origin of the astronaut has to be found around the year 94. By then I liked a lot a poem by Pablo Neruda called, precisely, “The astronaut”, and wrote a small suite of short pieces, about thirteen minutes, like a musical background to recite the poem. At the end I kept the music, but didn’t use the poem. Some years later I completed a second version of the suite, with some new passages, twenty-something minutes long. This version already contained, in a primitive form, some of the subjects of the definitive version (“Hibernation”, “Here be dragons”, “The Trifid Nebula”, “The Funeral” and “The descent”). When at last I decided to revisit the work early this year, I listened to all the old material, recovered other themes composed throughout the years and composed new ones.

I also wrote a small tale that worked like a driver to the music. In some way, the narrated fragments try to put a frame to what the musical excerpts should suggest to each listener. While we accompany First Born in his trip, each one will do an alike but unique and different trip.

As a background for these small narrated fragments I improvised small pieces of environmental music, so that during all the disk there’s music playing, but First Born transmissions alternate with the long musical pieces.

Here you have a brief explanation of the "Astronaut" plot (CONTAINS SPOILERS!):

Sometime in our future mankind is forced to escape from planet Earth, aparently by its own fault. We don't know the exact moment, but we know they're able to use a wormhole which joins a point in space close to Fomalhaut Star and Cygnus X-1, 6000 light years far from Earth. Journey's destination in unknown, but we guess human being settles in a new planet, or lives adrift in starships. After a long time, unknown circumstances, or time itself, causes this new mankind to forget its own origins. At some point they start receiving radio signals with patterns which suggest intelligent life, and a starship is sent to investigate: the Asimov. Radio signals come from the Earth, but since those radio signals haven't travelled through the warmhole it took milleniums for them to get to this new mankind, who has forgotten who it once was. After crossing the wormhole the starship gets to Earth in its past, before the signals were sent, and even before the birth of Christ. The astronuat provides the ancient some scientific knowledge, initiates them in the search of knowledge itself and prepares himself for the task of trying to change the future so mankind will not be doomed to escape from Earth again.

The fact that the ships are called Asimov and Sagan seems to be incompatible with the origins oblivion, although the fact that those names are being used doesn't mean their etymology is known. Anyway that was my way to insert the names in the tale in the form of a tribute.

The album contains lots of references and tributes to people and works which have influenced my music, or have inspired it, in one way or another.