“This CD is a new beginning. Anatrofobia abandon their personal jazz-rock style. Now, their music is a new synthesis of acoustic and live-electronics, structured and aleatoric sounds, programming and free improvisation”, their website explains and Alessandro Cartolari remembers: “Our attempt was to create a series of structured improvisations playing with noise and silence, order and caos. We tried to include these thoughts into one long piece as an attempt to express the whole more communicatively and less abstract.” All band members took on additional duties, with Cartolari adding sound manipulation to his tasks as an Alto Saxophonist. The result is an avantgardistic and hypnotic tour de force of momentously pulsating Synthesizers, delicate lower case operations at the verge of complete quietude, Free Jazz erruptions, cool soundscapes and clattering percussion work.

The approach of conceptualising “Brevi Momenti” as a series of short scenes, which are all part of a single, overarching concept, lends an even more ambitious aura to a record already excelling in a plethora of musical ideas. Originally, prerecorded work was going to be juxtaposed with live registrations, but in the end, the band opted for the pure studio edit: “In December 2006 and April of 2007, we entered the studio to record two sessions of the long piece ‘Brevi momenti di presenza’”, Cartolari explains, “Afterwards, we decided to use December version for the first part of the CD, while culling second part from the April recording. Since we played this piece in different concerts, it would have been better to record it live with audience, but due to some logistical problems, it was impossible to come up with a satisfying result.”

It has only turned the album into an even more claustrophobic and majestic work. It is a sensation created by the solemn grace of its tranquilly floating moments of surreal dronework, as well as by its sheer versatility. Furthermore, precisely composed passages take turns with exactly delineated improvisations: “There are no free improvisations on the CD, only structured ones. Meanwhile, some short events in the central part of the album were completely written out, as we wanted give an idea of sense and order when returning from silence into sound and before returning to silence anew.”

As ambitious as it may be, quite a few bands in Italy are currently exploring similar paths, combining electronics with faint traces of Jazz and Rock. Cartolari remains casual about the possibility of this creating a new scene of sorts: “I think that anyone who is a curious musician is currently hard pressed to achieve complete certainty in approaching his instrument and his music”, he ponders, “Today the sheer speed of music production and the increasing reach of communication channels has lowered barriers between different styles. The result is a continuos osmosis. I don’t know if that’s a good thing. But it’s the way it is...” Judging by the impact of “Brevi Momenti”, it is certainly a movement capable of delivering impressive blows.

Homepage: Anatrofobia
Homepage: Wallace Records