A. Celletti + J. Molina + Damon & Naomi

It's becoming something of a tradition for Bari's Time Zones festival, which this year reaches its 22nd edition and has long been regarded as one of the leading showcases for the most interesting trends in contemporary music, to bring together artists who are diverse and seemingly worlds apart in their respective musical aesthetics on the same night. And yet unlikely connections often emerge once you hear them back to back. That's exactly what happened on November 15th, at the festival's second date.

The evening opened with a beautiful solo piano performance from Alessandra Celletti, richly varied in mood, delicate and impetuous by turns, centered on her just-released new album ("The Golden Fly"), on three pieces dedicated to metals, and on a composition dedicated to Cardinal Martini. It closed with a performance of a segment from Philip Glass's "Metamorphosis". Also worth noting was an excellent piece featuring an enchanting use of the voice.

With her fluent, touching poetics, Celletti takes her place within the Italian neo-classical piano scene alongside figures such as Ludovico Einaudi and Giovanni Allevi.

Next up was Jason Molina: an American cowboy (Songs: Ohia, Magnolia Electric Co.) with a delicate vocal emotionality, at times restrained, at others intensely shouted. He too performed in complete solitude, accompanied only by a guitar full of a thousand reverbed suggestions, played with a distinctive technique. Molina showed sparse tones alternating with evocative intensity, and a marked tendency toward a desolate, desert-like loneliness common to much contemporary American songwriting. Somewhere between country and echoes of Neil Young/David Crosby/Van Morrison, he literally captivated us with a performance whose wise balance between silence and fullness was one of its greatest attractions.

A real surprise, on the other hand, was the act of Damon Krukowski and Naomi Young, formerly of Galaxie 500 (Boston, MA), one of the most evocative and subtly psychedelic American bands of the late Eighties, known for an ethereal, dreamlike sound with Velvet Underground-esque influences.

In their new guise, Damon and Naomi have shuffled the deck somewhat: he moved from drums to acoustic guitar and vocals, while Naomi alternated between bass, keyboards and lead vocals. Backed by an exotic electric guitarist, who proved genuinely skilled with discreet yet incisive contributions, and by an extremely creative saxophonist, the ethereal Damon and the statuesque Naomi unveiled an enveloping atmospheric and harmonic appeal, not so far removed, in the end, from Galaxie 500, but bolstered by sharper, more pronounced melodic touches. More pop, in short, and in a few moments even downright folksy.

The delicate instrumental balance was magical, and Naomi's cool, lyrical voice was deeply moving.

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