ERIO - Inesse

Already an original voice on the Italian scene with his first “Für El” (2015), Tuscany's Fabiano “Erio” Franovich openly challenges the music of machines on the follow-up, “Inesse”. His angelic, malleable, refracted and sopranistic voice, his countertenor-like spiritualism, no longer resonates purely within his own psyche and that of the listener; it now faces off against digital beats, effects, overdubs — matter that on his debut was only a timid detail of the sonic fabric before him — putting his androgynous personality firmly in the spotlight.

This doesn't necessarily mean a loss of humanity: in "Limerence", the first single, Franovich repeats ad libitum the chant that serves as its refrain, like a psalm-singer, but his high notes are now purely decorative, as in the oscillating voices of "Biggest Of Hearts" (which Arca would appreciate). The heart of the record radiates originality, in the digital pan-ethnic folk of the Autechre-esque "Becalmed" and even more so in the diffracted r'n'b psalm of "A Glowing Gash", a tattered beat that reveals a core of musique concrète, then in the remixed piano lied of "To The Warehouse" — a masterstroke — pierced by an atonal string sonatina. The spectrum widens to include "The Glorious Advance", one of the most Cubist tracks, and even a crossover blending posse rap and Meat Loaf-style melodrama in "Attic".

None of this ever loses its footing, yet it doesn't shy away from fashionable winks at trap music or trivial club sounds either, and a few tracks sound unfinished if not a little slapdash. It redeems itself, and well, through its decisive postmodern edge, its elegantly mannerist bearing (Bjork lurking in the background), and a prized refinement also steeped in ethnic inflections, especially North African ones, shining brightest in the slender cantillation of "The Church" (tabla, sitar, strings). A record that's not easy to take in, thorny at times, transitional, yet entirely conceived and crafted by its author. Just a little production help from Ioshi, Will Rendle, Yakamoto Kotzuga. Co-released with La Tempesta Dischi.

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21/05/2018