SONANZE

Lesser known from the audience, Roberto Cacciapaglia is recognised for his high-quality and eclectic instrumental epic albums. His personal musical universe is quite varied, it incorporates classical symphonic music, sonic looped dronescapes, majestic spacey synth grooves and concrete avant gardism. Sonanze is an impressive and fascinating album, melodic, entrancing and experimental at the same time. This fantastic debut album admits comparisons with Franco Battiato's most challenging efforts and with Franco Leprino's exceptional orchestrated electronic suites. The two first movements introduce the listener in a charming-tumultuous symphonic dreaminess based on collage sounds, synth frequences and heroic langurous parts for strings and brass. Some buzzing-trancey manipulated voices are added to the mix, providing catchy hallucinatory effects. The third movement is a playful classical piano piece floating-like calm waves. The fourth movement is a dark-ritual voices incantation made in a modern operatic-theatrical style. The three following movements provide gorgeous, long form dreamy soundscapes for cloudy synth textures and harmonious static drones. The atmosphere is deliciously meditative and introspective without being easy listening and unconsistently new agey. The two last movements are strange cinematic musical scenes using massive atonal orchestrations and otherwordly layering synth sounds . This album is impressively complex, technically achieved but without being boring or cryptical for neophyts: The atmospheres are completely suggestive and magically haunted with the inclusion of dense, colourful melodic lines. A magnificent album and a must have for fans of vintage Italian prog, classical contemporary music and kosmische electronica.