CD – Room 40
These four compositions by Andrea Belfi – with Giuseppe Ielasi mixing and mastering – have been skilfully woven together in collaboration with Rutger Zuydervelt, Stefano Roveda, Stefano Pilia, Massimo Carozzi, Stefano Tedesco, Andrea Faccioli, Valerio Tricoli, Attila Faravelli and Greg Haines. The sounds that soon envelop us through the multiform and sudden passages are in a mild flux, rich in elegant echoes and percussive movement that reverberate with other oscillations, melodic grafts, drones and textual parts. It’s hard to tell what has resulted from improvisation and what has been carefully prepared because everything seems intimately connected, shining with a direct articulation of the instruments (inspired here by Pendulum Music’s Reichian theories, a fruitful example of how a feedback process can itself create new suggestions). Between the grooves we sense how Andrea Belfi privileges the performative aspect of his music: notwithstanding a maniacal care for tone – and the always-calibrated cuts – the airs vibrate with a strong concert tension, touching the listener with a continuous retroaction. The paths (“wege” in German) sometimes turn a little “western” and the post-rock references get cheeky, but they don’t ruin the overall substance of the textures, which remain refined in the electro-acoustic structure and in the investigation of new modular avant-folk mixes.