VOTIVA LUX - Solaris

There's no doubt that the Italian path to so-called post-rock runs through Emilia: it's from here that the excellent Giardini di Mirò come, and it's from here that the talented quartet Votiva Lux also hail. It has to be said that these four guys (guitarists Andrea Ghidini and Giulio Sangirardi, bassist/keyboardist Gabriele Bufalini and drummer Stefano Grassi) have paid plenty of dues, going through various trials and changes of musical direction and line-up; they already recorded a CD back in 1996, but it was only in 2000, with the superb EP "Lindbergh", that they managed to break through, revealing all their talent across four long instrumental tracks in the vein of Tortoise. That talent is confirmed by this album, eight tracks of which only one, the opening track "Ffair", features vocals, courtesy of Welsh vocalist Brychan Llyr.

The fact that the singer uses the Gaelic language is proof of how much inspiration the band drew for this record from the Celtic world and its evocative atmospheres, called upon loud and clear especially in the triad "Inisheer", "Inishmore" and "Inishmaan": the first is very gentle and arpeggiated, the second more nervously electric, the third simply heart-wrenching, and it's also the track that closes the album, a brief piano figure surrounded by distortion and spectral noise.

The album also thrives on more unsettled moments like the splendid "Il Villaggio degli Uomini Fungo", a bizarre track with strong psychedelic echoes, and on catchier moments like "Rommel" and "Atlantic". Standing out above everything else, though, is "Gasteropod-1", a long, exhilarating build that wouldn't look out of place alongside the finest work of the genre's masters, see Tortoise, Godspeed and Mogwai, before exploding and dissolving into a cloud of "cosmic" effects.

All in all, a record that confirms just how vital the Italian alternative scene is, while still hoping it won't go unnoticed, as is sadly more likely in a country that still lives off Sanremo and sends D'Alessio to the top of the charts.

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07/11/2006