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Daniel Herskedal – Harbour (Edition Records, 2021)

By Marcello Nardi Jul 3, 2021 0

Harbour is an exploration of the world rooted deep and meaningful investigation of the folk traditions, only occasionally tinged by jazz, but eventually elicited by a strong use of the interplay within the trio. Yet none of this solves the riddle of how this album can be so hypnotically pleasant, so engaging, balancing humble moments of beauty through caressing listening

Mark Wingfield, Jane Chapman, Adriano Adewale – Zoji (MoonJune, 2021)

By Marcello Nardi Jun 27, 2021 0

Dwelling in that area between map and territory, between the apparent calmness of the score and the deceiving ubiquitness of the improvisation, the marriage between electric guitar and harpsichord is a meeting of opposites in many ways. First, two instruments which are testaments of two very different traditions. But also two different conceptions of the score and the improvisation. That’s eventually a false opposition, and Mark Wingfield and Jane Chapman make an effort to prove it wrong in multiple ways. In their latest record Zoji, this time extended in a trio with the addition of percussionist Adriano Adewale, they prove even more that there’s a junction they can meet

HUMANBEING – Humanbeing (RareNoise, 2021)

By Marcello Nardi May 31, 2021 0

Walking the thin line between excess and refrain, Humanbeing is a somber and masterful act of intimacy, an album devoted to explore the organicity of sounds, revolving through layers of increasingly blurred colors. Producer and pianist Rossano Baldini, the man behind the monicker Humanbeing, ventures in foggy landscapes bringing shimmering lights, gently driving the listeners through unexplicable undertows. Undulating between plaintive and joyful, yet deliberately choosing not to reach any of the two, his music is giftedly blurred and captivating

Devin Gray & Gerald Cleaver – 27 Licks (Rataplan Records, 2020)

By Marcello Nardi May 15, 2021 0

Notwithstanding a drum duet, 27 licks is all about motivic and thematic movement, despite no melodic instrument is involved. Well, not exactly no melodic instrument involved, as both Devin Gray and Gerald Cleaver manipulate their drum kit to create flowing melodies, sometimes clearly hearable and distinct, or rather implicit, otherworldly and almost perceptible. That’s an array of subleties, a meeting of uncoscious depths that has been honed through the multiple years of mentorhip and complicity between the two, rendered through deceiving elegance and swift interplay

Liquid Tension Experiment 3 (InsideOut, 2021)

By Marcello Nardi May 8, 2021 0

Quite some things have changed in the last 22 years of the four members of progressive supergroup Liquid Tension Experiment, but others have not. Mike Portnoy (Dream Theater, Sons of Apollo, Neal Morse), John Petrucci (Dream Theater), Jordan Rudess (Dream Theater, Dixie Dregs) and Tony Levin (King Crimson, Peter Gabriel) meet the challenge of replicating the electrifyng mix of virtuoso progressive comping and seamlessly fast execution shown in the initial two chapters and Liquid Tension Experiment 3 is a statemement for the future of instrumental metal progressive, no matter what has happened since chapter two