THE CALENDAR

The multi-directional and tremendously adventurous electronic post-rockin chamber ensemble Sparkle in Grey is back after the powerful, eclectic and electric krautrockin 'Thursday Evening'. 'The Calendar' is so made of magnificent soundscaping poetries that words can hardly explain my feelings after a first immersion in the music. This is continuously intimate and irresistibly enchanting, you just need to let yourself to be absorbed by those small, unpretentious, slightly humorous and sincere microsonic musical paintings. As in the previous releases the deeply evocative and melancholic dreamy-like atmosphere is still here but the electronic arrangements are reduced to the minimum to let the place to a vast collection of acoustic instrumentation where the guitar and the violin play a major role, punctuated by silences, sometimes sustained by detached and sorrowing trumpet lines. Field recordings and processed textures are also brought to the fore and communicate all together in a very dynamic and spontaneous folkish register. Dissonant compositional schemas, enigmatic instrumental phrases meet absolutely heavenly melodic themes in a minimalist-microtonal mode. Each track develops its own characteristics, sometimes plaintive, ethereal, naïve but clearly orientated to a sense of progressiveness with a nicely suggestive cinematic touch whose Matteo and his team have definitely the secret. This album admits no comparison. According to me this is an undisputed little masterpiece that proves once again that the collective stands as unique and freely inspiring in the universe of independent-alternative music. Among the top favorites of the year.