PILLOW - Flowing Seasons

While waiting for the new album by Giardini di Mirò, the excellent 2nd Rec label releases the solo debut of the band's keyboardist, Luca Di Mira, under the moniker Pillow (not to be confused with the Belgian post-rock band of the same name).

The eight tracks collected on "Flowing Seasons" are undoubtedly an excellent way to pass the time while waiting, since they inevitably share the sonic settings of the artist's main band. However, the affinity is more conceptual than sonic, because while this record does retain GdM's trademark attitude toward dilation and vaguely acid-tinged suspension, it's channelled here into melancholic ballads with predominantly autumnal atmospheres of minimal, nocturnal and romantic indie-tronica. This is aided by writing that's far from banal, even within an already well-trodden field, and a compositional sensibility open to more than one pleasant digression, such as the many acoustic passages, a piano that plays alone and cursed, and electronics that occasionally come more to the fore, leaving a firm mark on tracks that are almost always enriched by vocals — which, in two cases ("Cut-out-and-keep Quarrels" and "Mixologists And Waifs"), take the form of the fragile, dreamy singing of German singer-songwriter Finn.

Pulsing atmospheres of clouded happiness turn oppressive in the incipit of "Song For Beginning", between a drum machine that beats shadily and a crystalline guitar that emits colour with every cry. A vaguely mystical, solemn vocal line, a female choir and that touch of darkness make it a beginning of surly beauty. "Cut-out-and-keep Quarrels" is a vaguely classical folk song that's duly corroded by the increasingly intrusive treatment of electronics, with a tear that rips and lacerates, a firm, insistent beat; a small mistake is a dot of vivid colour that bursts with variegated joy.

"In Deep Sea" veers toward a far more electronic approach, embracing something that resembles an atypical IDM, with a myriad of strings chiselling exquisitely sweet and refined melodic lines. A classical spirit hybridises with an alien mind, inevitably clashing, but also offering moments of pure sonic catharsis. "Indecision" is pop with a bittersweet flavour, with that battered, limping touch: sharp sounds repeat cyclically, a female voice sings a harrowing poem, while digital bubbles sway between a blue sky and a pure white cloud.

"Mixologists And Waifs" confirms that everything is achievable while still retaining that classicising air floating in the atmosphere, the xylophone chiming metallically, small prickly glitches. "Tree Shadow" is an instrumental so beautiful it brings tears to the eyes: the piano notes are stars crossing distant skies, the cello cuts through silence with unheard-of violence, the electronic beat phrases rhythmic contours with expressive features. "Thick Skin" is an organ stretching out peaceful and relaxed, an oblivion of glitches smudging something finely constructed, Jacqueline Tune's voice is a song coming from wonderland, dreamy chords depicting an earthly vision.

The closer ("With The Passing Of The Seasons") is given over to something steeped in finely corrosive, decaying sadness. A true emotional crescendo juxtaposes every element second by second for a song that's simply stunning. Once again the piano oozes pain, a horn blares, the mechanical groove grows ever icier, and a wrenching longing that, at the end of its days, gives way to silence, bringing something perfect to a close.

That's enough to consider this debut album not a mere digression from the artist's main band, but a work that fully expresses its author's abilities, placing him on equal footing alongside the best interpreters of the oblique intersections between electronic music and emotional, acoustic-romantic atmospheres.

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17/04/2006