CELESTION

What a good surprise listening to this album! I didn't think I could like an instrumental album for mainly acoustic guitars so much, but the tunes here are so beautiful, sunny and intense that you could almost sing them. Riccardo Zappa gives birth to a timeless work, where he can display all his skills and fantasy, but in doing so he never tries to sound flamboyant, never exaggerates, making his music sound even simple and straight. "Frammenti" is a masterstroke: classical inspired arpeggios and folk tunes chase each other, ending up in a phased guitar heaven which never fails to leave me breathless. "Tre o Quattro Quarti" always reminds me of Angelo Branduardi, maybe for its particular hue lost somewhere between Reinassance and celtic folk (with a beautiful binaural echo... I don't know if Riccardo Zappa also produced this album. In this case he would be one of the finest Italian producers).The title track begins with atmospherical passages, with interesting sound effects, then evolves as a "poppy" piece, with synths reminding me of Le Orme. Maybe this was supposed to be the core of the album, and it's a good track indeed, but I feel it as the weakest one in the bunch. When you get to "Sonata Mediterranea" you really get somewhere else, a dreamy and fascinating waltz with a wonderful melancholic main melody; guitars are also used to mock mandolins, and the whole effect is the same as a quiet evening on the Mediterranean Sea, just after sunset... "Mirage" is the natural consequence to this piece, a lengthy track reminding "Tubular Bells" in its piling up tunes all deriving from the main arpeggio, the perfect way to close an excellent album. Now, I'm looking at my acoustic guitar and dreaming of playing such heavenly stuff...