COSTANZA - Sonic Diary

Costanza Francavilla, a singer-songwriter and guitarist from Rome, began her musical career with Ethnia, a band she founded herself, before going solo and moving towards trip-hop electronica. In the early 2000s, one of Costanza's early recordings (by which point she had relocated to London) ended up in the hands of Tricky; the trip-hop godfather was so impressed that he decided to feature her on his 2003 album, "Vulnerable". Thus launched, Costanza released her debut EP, "Zerokilled", entirely written, played and produced by her, and built a name for herself live through numerous festival appearances across Europe (as well as through her personal contributions to soundtracks for successful TV series). On her first full-length album, "Sonic Diary", once again self-produced (though released under the Zerokilled moniker, with the help of trusted collaborators), the singer gets to fully express herself in a kind of "onboard concept" drawing on the experiences gathered so far.

On the musical side, the artist shows a clear preference for rarefied settings, in a style close to that of Emiliana Torrini. The opening triad sets up a fairly familiar pattern, ranging from nocturnal r'n'b ("Just Another Alien") to layered downtempo ("I've Been Waiting For You"), to digital-atmospheric EBM embellished with touches mimicking a theremin ("I Am Ready"). The instrumental version of "Babilon Dream" combines a looped gothic guitar with dissonant pulses bordering on new age, but it's above all on "50 Bullets Fired In Queens", with reverbed raga-style vocals surrounded by phantasmagoric harmonies and a chaotic jungle rhythm, that convention is set aside and real personality emerges.

Likewise, "Promises" and "In The Sun" – the weakest tracks – show much more venial stylistic traits, from ethnic quotations to arrangements built on a simple string drone. The contrast between production levels (minimal-ambient solfeggio, Kraftwerk-esque robotic wails, avant-garde vocalizations) works better on "Where Have You Been" and on the more pressing "Back Into My Mother's Womb", caught between dark-wave and old-school dream-pop, whose suspended interlude rises just enough above revivalist cliché. "God's Gonna Cut You Down", perhaps the boldest moment, builds a sort of bridge between electroclash, the vitalistic pop of Belinda Carlisle and the sleekest Pizzicato Five, while "Burqa" opens on a jingling sound that triggers a dark, low-definition dub beat adorned with hermetic piano trills, where the vocals (falsetto included) grow even more anemic. In the neo-soul of "Medicine" the guitar makes an appearance (not sampled), her own instrument, in a minor key.

After hitting rock bottom with the tedious cover of Rino Gaetano's "I tuoi occhi sono pieni di sale", Costanza far surpasses everything achieved so far with "Coming Home" (the closing extra track), a 13-minute cinematic suite brimming with inspiration. After a looped, cacophonous gurgle, analog chimes appear in utter silence; out of nowhere a dissonant rhodes strikes up a suspended melody, joined by a liturgical counterpoint. The whole thing is interrupted by an enigmatic ticking that soon morphs into smoky dub and, in turn, into psychotic Underworld-style techno. From here a crescendo of wild, cacophonous sounds begins, degenerating by the second; there's then a sudden return to the first theme, with electronic suspensions and a siren-like voice, but another layer of dissonance spurs fresh, violent drum-machine hits over a mysterious suspense. The finale unfolds yet another heretical trip-hop made of samples, cuts and drone floods, and finally lets loose Costanza's intense vocals to dominate tides of electronic timbres.

The thoroughly stark mood and often timid arrangements don't fully convey the sense of the overall design; even though every track carries a programmatic subtitle ("To My Love", "To Our Star", "To The Kids", and so on), the shifts in context are questionable, and not really that varied. Rather, it's the multiple ambitions that give it bite: literary, songwriterly, painterly, even civic (never indignant nor exacerbated) and learned ones. "I tuoi occhi sono pieni di sale" is produced by Riccardo Sinigallia; "Promises" is also a cover (Fugazi). "Babilon Dream" was originally a duet with Tricky himself. "Coming Home" is part of the soundtrack to "While She Was Out" by Scottish director Susan Montford, starring Kim Basinger.

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12/09/2008