[reviews] afe062cd
punck: nowhere campfire tapes

Entitling one of your pieces "Tsunami Notes" and featuring spoken text (on "Adriatico Lisergico" there's even the sound of waves breaking on the seashore) certainly goes against the grain of electronica's predominantly abstract non-programmatic agenda.

In context, the glistening chords and gently collapsing rumble of the opening "Almost Anything" are heard more as doleful requiem than gradually shifting microtonal clusters, and the eerie bleeps behind the Chinese water torture of "Tsunami Notes" take on a whole new meaning.

The closing "Almost Nothing" – the reference to Luc Ferrari's "Presque Rien N°.1", which originated on the other side of the Adriatic, couldn't be clearer – is a 26-minute tone poem complete with birds twittering merrily away while some sporadic (re)construction work carries on in the foreground and the occasional light aircraft drones by overhead.

Whether it'll sound as good once the images of devastated paradise beaches and bloated rotting corpses has faded from our imagination is a moot point, but the elegance of the production and the precision and beauty of Adriano Zanni's music is undeniable.

[DW]