ANDREA FERRARIS / MATTEO UGGERI WITH MUJIKA EASEL & ANDREA SERRAPIGLIO: “AUTUMN IS COMING, WE’RE ALL IN SLOW MOTION”

7:35 pm in Podcast, Publications by Rafa Segura

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Experimental music, by its very nature, is often unconcerned with melody; other qualities of sound and music are explored, taken apart and reconstructed with the intent of presenting the listener with surprising new ways to engage with the listening experience. Many commendable aural experiences have been produced by mere tweaking of single variables within sound; much of the ambient canon relies on a relatively minimal bag of tricks. It is, however, clear from the outset that “Autumn is Coming…” is a very different beast indeed.

Hb20: Autumn is coming, we’re all in slow motion sampler by hibernate

Andrea Ferraris and Matteo Uggeri have crafted an album that is as much concerned with homespun melody as it is with inspired experimentation. The tension between these opposing forces has been perfectly calibrated to provide a delightfully balanced and engaging collection of tracks.

Ferraris and Uggeri push field recordings to the fore and every track is concerned with the interplay between the sounds of the world around us and acoustic instrumentation. The true magic of this album is the way that both of these elements are integrated through finely judged electronic manipulation. Field recordings subtly morph to reflect musical patterns, loop to develop rhythmic accompaniment or wax and wane to provide moments of introspective focus on the melodic elements. Likewise, the guitar, piano, cello and voices that make up the bulk of the melodic components are subjected to an array of manipulative tricks that allow them to dance, stutter, dissolve and expand within the frame provided by the field recordings. There is not a note or sound out of place across any of the tracks which range from mournful cello-led laments, through expansive vocal ambience, to intimate plucked guitar pieces. This collection of approaches prevents the album from becoming bogged down in any one style, yet there is an unmistakeable unity to the pieces here – a real coherence amongst the variety on display.

It would have be too easy for this project to fall into the trap of being weighed down by too many ideas and ending up a jumbled kind of chaos; unfocussed, heavy handed and messy. It is to the credit of all the contributors that the opposite is true. The experimentation is always complementary, the vision well honed, and the execution so surprisingly “just right” that I think I can honestly say that I believe this album to have set a new ‘gold standard’. You have heard music with aspirations to what is accomplished here, but you haven’t heard a perfectly realised melding of folk-field recording-classically infused ambience until you have heard this album. Really. It’s that good.

- Review by John McCaffrey for Fluid Radio

Available in October through Hibernate Recordings store

www.hibernate-recs.co.uk
www.greysparkle.com/hue
www.myspace.com/andreaicsferraris
www.myspace.com/mujikaeasel
www.myspace.com/andreaserrapiglio

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ANDREA FERRARIS / MATTEO UGGERI WITH MUJIKA EASEL & ANDREA SERRAPIGLIO: “AUTUMN IS COMING, WE’RE ALL IN SLOW MOTION”, 6.0 out of 10 based on 1 rating