TUPOLEV - Towers Of Sparks

Known

in Italy mainly thanks to the participation of their

bassist-cellist Alexandr Vatagin in the live performances of

port-royal, the Viennese outfit Tupolev reach their second album, refining their

formula poised between neoclassicism and segmentations that reveal a pronounced

"post-" spirit.

In the nearly three years

separating the debut “Memory of Björn Bolssen” from the concise (twenty-eight minute)

follow-up to “Towers Of Sparks”, the band's four members

tried their hand at various other side projects, among which at least

Slon and Protestant Work Ethic deserve a mention; having returned to the fold of their

original inspiration as a contemporary-jazz combo, they've poured into the

new album the experience and sensibility built up over the years, aimed at a

a decisive break from the clichés it always risks falling into

a quartet made up of piano, drums, bass or cello and

electronics.

We are,

in fact, neither in the territory of academic avant-garde, nor of contemporary

classical music; rather, on “Towers Of Sparks” Tupolev show they know how to

balance technique and immediacy, romanticism and deconstructionist tendencies, in

eight abstract yet sufficiently expressive compositions, in which soft

piano notes balance out against jazzy rhythms and electronic

saturations intertwine with the solemn movement of Vatagin's strings.

It's almost inevitable to

think of nocturnal chamber scores à la Rachel's and of the more nervous

lines of 33.3; in the background, a classicism in the vein of Penguin Café Orchestra remains,

yet fragmented by dry drumming, whose cadences form the

main link to experiences like Karate's and to

that “post-” aesthetic channeled on the jazz side by a constant

alternation of elegant, nocturnal inlays. It's no coincidence that the album was

deliberately mastered at low volume, making it suited to

hushed, intimate atmospheres, in which one can give in to the flow of

memories without, however, being overwhelmed by emotions that are too strong. Everything is

blurred and, seemingly, antiseptic across the eight tracks of “Towers Of Sparks”,

which (positively) give in to any real involvement only in the presence of

electronic textures, or where it's the harmonizations that take the

upper hand.

Thus, piano and

crackles frame the harmonic fluidity of ““Towers Of Sparks 3””, while

Vatagin's cello turns romantic, embracing the dense ambience of

“Towers Of Sparks 1”, e dolente nell’intensa “Petroleum”, fino al progressivo

the slowing of tempo into which closer “Juno” flows.

The album's

contained length is a solid antidote to its substantial

flatness, determined not so much by repetitive solutions as

by a uniformity of atmospheres that lack character to the same

degree they chase a composed refinement. The overall effect is,

nonetheless, pleasant and, although it's unlikely to spark much

involvement, the record is at least suited to being savored alongside a

good full-bodied wine, on a solitary winter evening in which to let

far-off thoughts wander, lucidly hazy.

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03/02/2011