DECIMO CERCHIO (WITH "I SINCOPATICI")

The band I Sincopatici have made a name for themselves with their Cineconcertos, performances meant to unify film and live music. They focus on the rediscovery and reframing of silent films - leaving me wondering if they might take a crack at parts of Abel Gance's Napoleon some day. This album is a recording of a 2021 performance for L'Inferno, Italy's first full length feature, one that like many great silent films has gone through partial restorations (including one two years after this performance), and a harrowing depiction of the horrors of Hell. Joined by the titanic vocalist Claudio Milano, I Sincopatici have delivered a haunting and sublime accompaniment to the film.

The instrumentation is driven largely by the pianos and synths of Francesca Badalini, who is the primary composer of the group's music which is then built upon by the rest of the band. Over the course of the hour long performance the band veers between her somber piano and more rocking, unnerving stretches like "I Barattieri" where the power of bassist Andrea Grumelli and drummer/percussionist Luca Casiraghi come forth. These moods are only heightened by both Badalini's turns on her synths and the ever unpredictable Milano's fearsome vocals. Milano takes the epic poetry of Dante Alighieri and runs it through his wild, vanguardist stylings. He is at once narrator and vengeful spirit, slipping across the stage and twisting his poetry into the cries of the damned. As previously seen in snapshots on Milano's ManifestAzioni collection, I Sincopatici only grows mightier when he is on hand to deepen their leftfield connections to the films they work with.

Together with the 2023 performance collected digitally with this record from Piacenza, the Cineconcertos that I Sincopatici and Claudio Milano have delivered are astounding reinterpretations of a classic film that unfold into sonic vortices befitting the many circles of Hell. I heartily look forward to future Cineconcertos.