ALTEA - Nessuna

Ukulele, guitar and piano are the instruments with which Altea stitches together her songs, much like a seamstress of another era. Seven, to be precise, are the tracks featured on "Nessuna", the EP the singer-songwriter from Salento releases after a fairly long stint as the heart and voice of the Neapolitan collective Thru Collected.

The declared references at the presentation stage are Mika Levi, Tirzah, Coby Sey, Thom Yorke and Burial. Quite a mixed bag, to be honest. And indeed, a fruit salad of electronic tricks, folktronic inserts and sometimes unpredictable rhythm changes is the only metaphor able to offer, right from the start, a definition that's at least faithful to Altea's music.

Take for instance the tail end that stages a sort of soft ambient landing in “Accompagnamento”, a ballad suspended between vaguely break-beat arrangements and stop&go passages à la Lopatin, which have always been the trademark of the band Altea comes from as well. Or the Red Snapper- or Squarepusher-indebted frenzy, take your pick, that pervades “Alto il mento”, needed to lift off the ground the fears flagged by lyrics that spell out in no uncertain terms the complications of a love cut short. Cut from an entirely different cloth is the piano-led “Nuvole”, with its jagged, barely perceptible echoes and an elusiveness (here we go again!) that mirrors the very shape of the clouds Altea sings about.

In this gentle simmer of electric solutions, dubstep beats and sudden accelerations, the songs on “Nessuna” bring out the restless spirit of a young visionary wrestling with demons, tears and an absurd urge to run away, as far as possible, maybe onto one of Neptune's rings or to the far side of the Sun, as suggested by the music-box sound of “Vertigine”, a lo-fi moment whose backing track recalls the best of Colleen (no small feat!).

“Nessuna” is a display of total independence, and it most likely also conceals an attempt to break away from a singer-songwriter macrocosm that's sometimes all too crowded with carbon-copy releases. To pull it off so admirably, and without a trace of arrogance, Altea has an innate knack for standing out from the crowd without making a fuss, moving on tiptoe through the silence of a room or on the stage of a club frequented by only a lucky few. Hers is a rapacious and, in its own way, decidedly precious inclination, one that should take her far. At least on paper, and in an ideal world.

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07/01/2026