SIMON BALESTRAZZI - The Sky Is Full Of Kites

Within the folds of "The Sky Is Full Of Kites" you can sense how Simon Balestrazzi – far from staying anchored to the conventions of post-industrial music – has not only pursued a coherent, creative path of evolution but, more than that, has managed to fold the new currents of the international underground into his own vision. The frequency fluctuations and sounds of "Persistence Of Memory", for instance (the title is more than a hint), suggest a persistence of the dimension of memory – or of its shadow – which is one of the dominant themes in the discourse around hauntology.

In the interview he gave us, Balestrazzi himself confirms that part of his research concerns the "persistence of sonic memories, traces of songs that never took shape, out-of-focus memories, everything that has to do with the concept of atmosphere and emotional development...". And the track is a continuous fraying of placid (though restless) swells on the off-beat and collapsing synths, of shadows of melodies never born vainly seeking an identity, of industrial beats treated as residues of a bygone time, of unstable signs of something straining to emerge but inevitably condemned to oblivion. The fourteen minutes of "Persistence Of Memory" would be enough on their own to define the theoretical weight of Balestrazzi's research, were it not that the other two suites add further fuel to the fire.

The opening of "Under Pressure" rides on tracks of an obsessive, dark and nervous atmosphere, while a greater melodic airiness (compared to Balestrazzi's previous work) emerges above all in the second half of the closing "The Sky Is Full Of Kytes", where from the collapse of celestial bodies comes a grey dust that is featherlight yet highly radioactive. The result is a nightmare of a record that, once you wake up, leaves behind an enchanted feeling.

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11/04/2012