MU – Of Strings and Bridges
Slam Records SLAMCD 577
Mu is the duo: Adriano Lanzi, amplified acoustic guitar, sound effects; Federica Vecchio, cello
Recorded and mixed by Adriano Lanzi between Spring 2015 and Spring 2016
The music of MU is an exploration of these two instruments’ interface and their crossing point and to investigate these facets both artists have brought to the table their individual experiences and musical dialects. Lanzi has mixed familiarities with jazz-rock, electro-acoustic and with storytelling and music from West Africa. Vecchio performs in post rock and a string quartet, as well as for cinema in a soundtrack orchestra.
The album is an interesting blend of composition and free improv and adding these alternate musical planes to their diverse processes brings a welcome sparkle to the mix. Some electronics have been stirred in but fairly minimally, never to interfere with the notion of the acoustic elements. Neither this nor any other aspect of the music interrupts the flow of this investigative dialogue and their new discoveries take the duo forward to an acute integration of their dissimilar languages.
Another way of listening to this album would be to imagine it as complement to an enactment or action or indeed a silent film. Yes, that is different to their approach as they have recently (October 2016, Perugia) provided a concrete illustration of the breadth of their dialectic following the duo’s proposal to screen The Golem: How He Came into the World, a German expressionist cinema landmark from 1920. The silent film was accompanied by the duo with their new soundtrack, written and extemporized live as a complete performance, which emphasized the profoundly edgy and unending pulsation which emanates from the film and its theme, which presaged the onset of Nazi persecution.
Perhaps you could take the music and perform as its accompaniment?
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
Slam Records SLAMCD 577
Mu is the duo: Adriano Lanzi, amplified acoustic guitar, sound effects; Federica Vecchio, cello
Recorded and mixed by Adriano Lanzi between Spring 2015 and Spring 2016
The music of MU is an exploration of these two instruments’ interface and their crossing point and to investigate these facets both artists have brought to the table their individual experiences and musical dialects. Lanzi has mixed familiarities with jazz-rock, electro-acoustic and with storytelling and music from West Africa. Vecchio performs in post rock and a string quartet, as well as for cinema in a soundtrack orchestra.
The album is an interesting blend of composition and free improv and adding these alternate musical planes to their diverse processes brings a welcome sparkle to the mix. Some electronics have been stirred in but fairly minimally, never to interfere with the notion of the acoustic elements. Neither this nor any other aspect of the music interrupts the flow of this investigative dialogue and their new discoveries take the duo forward to an acute integration of their dissimilar languages.
Another way of listening to this album would be to imagine it as complement to an enactment or action or indeed a silent film. Yes, that is different to their approach as they have recently (October 2016, Perugia) provided a concrete illustration of the breadth of their dialectic following the duo’s proposal to screen The Golem: How He Came into the World, a German expressionist cinema landmark from 1920. The silent film was accompanied by the duo with their new soundtrack, written and extemporized live as a complete performance, which emphasized the profoundly edgy and unending pulsation which emanates from the film and its theme, which presaged the onset of Nazi persecution.
Perhaps you could take the music and perform as its accompaniment?
Reviewed by Ken Cheetham
