Chiara Liuzzi (voice, electronics,
sound objects), Giorgia Santoro (flute, bass flute, bansuri, xiao, piccolo,
voice, effects), Adolfo La Volpe (guitar, live electronics), Giacomo Mongelli
(drums), Chris Rathbun (bass), Pat Battstone (piano).
(Review by Steve T)
Ethnic sounding flute and female
voice with something going on behind. I knew this was going to be a tricky
review, with three out of six musicians playing electronics, sound objects,
effects and live electronics, not to mention a couple of instruments I've never
heard of. Anybody who would be interested in it will probably have already made
up their minds.
Track two evolves into something
resembling a jazz piano trio, then voice - and possibly some discernible lyrics
- before some unusual guitar chords joined in, then flute.
Some breathing and sound-effects lead
into another piano trio, plus more obscure, obtuse guitar chords, then joined
by one of the flute family before it settles into a basic rock rhythm, giving
the whole thing some welcome release.
Piano, heavy breathing, some effects,
guitar but this time it's a long piece to sustain. And so it goes on though
becoming increasingly difficult to maintain interest.
Until track ten of thirteen. Morning in a Japanese Garden with
some Far East Asian sounding instrumentation and vocalising, joined by some
lovely, tasteful ivory tinkling bringing a contrasting Western flavour.
I'd love to say the album is better
than my futile adjectives suggest but, if I'm honest, I suspect I'm making it
sound better than it actually is. While there is a market for this type of
thing, I doubt if anybody from the regular Bebop Spoken Here team are equipped
to do it justice. Ann Alex claims she has been promoted to reviewing
instrumental albums so perhaps I've been demoted to reviewing a vocal album,
although I remain uncertain whether there are any recognisable words.
I don't dislike it and some of it's
very good, and I'm not averse to interludes, provided they enhance the jouissance, here the best bits would
work fine as interludes, but fall short as highlights.
I suspect it will be far more
interesting live and I would certainly try to catch them if they played the
North East, so perhaps that's where they could sell it.
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