ENRICO CONIGLIO - dyanMU

Young Italian artists keep making their mark abroad, in that area between ambient and neoclassical that is wrongly underrated at home, in a musical scene still probably too reluctant to give due credit to productions that may well be niche, but are driven by passion and undeniable care in execution.

Enrico Coniglio, then, is just another name to add to the long list of "foreigners at home" so appreciated abroad that they find a home with labels that are often significant players too (see the case of Modern Institute on Expanding, or the recent one of Netherworld on Fario). This time it's Irish label Psychonavigation putting out a new and ambitious work by the Venetian guitarist and composer who, continuing his ambient-based experimental path, has chosen to engage with classical fragments, pairing them with a wide variety of electronic textures, drone and field recordings.

For this fifth work, Enrico Coniglio, supported by classically trained pianist Elisa Marzorati, drew inspiration from Claude Debussy's preludes to add faint romantic touches to liquid, nocturnal sounds that are at times shadowy, through an experimentation grounded in free improvisation yet particularly attentive to the overall coherence of the sonic result.

The album initially proposes an expressive register not unlike that of artists such as Sylvain Chauveau and Library Tapes, though it also weaves in small rhythmic and guitar loops, discreetly wrapped around the piano notes to conjure imaginary landscapes. Over this fluid, constant backdrop, the Veneto-based artist introduces a whole series of variations, modulating the piano's nuances on one hand and a multifaceted electronic tinkering on the other. This gives rise, in turn, to tracks furrowed by faint electronic spasms yet steeped in a culture medium close to dark-ambient, now as romantic and descriptive as a film score (“Mothlight”), now darkly still and dotted with almost imperceptible flecks of texture (“Birds Delight”).

Despite its linear structure, “dyanMU” deftly avoids any risk of monotony, often working through contrasts between neoclassical delicacy and drone-like uniformity. It's no coincidence that at least twice over the course of the album rather divergent passages occur, evident in the almost joyful tonality of the piano on “Bell-Ringer”, set against the shadowy mood of “Birds Delight”, and in the gentle romanticism of the solo piano piece “Walking Distance”, mirrored by the insistence of the drone turned into a hum on “Skip To Exit”.

It is precisely this constant dynamism in the compositions, hinted at by assonance right from the album's title, that seems to be the goal Coniglio set for himself, achieved through a well-balanced dosage of guitar loops and digital post-production, to which the classical legacy lends further shifting nuances and an aura capable of giving more tangible accessibility to experiments that never lose sight of the communicative and descriptive qualities of music evidently made for the pleasure of listening and imagining.

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07/07/2008