Anestetico V1 & V2
SonicaBotanica, 2022
8/10
An artist with an iconoclastic view of music, Giovanni Dal Monte brings us 2 discs of improvisations via modular synth and groove machines that are manipulated with a keen attention to mood and tone.
“Ketama” opens the listen with adventurous electronica, where strategic rhythm unfolds with bleeps and boops, and “Inle” continues this creativity with a fuller display of sharper synthetic sounds that are certainly danceable in atypical ways.
Further on in this portion, the sci-fi nods of “Guimaraes” offer a bit of mystery, while “Oddo” yields a tribal like drumming that’s a bit haunting. “Noravox” exits disc 1, and it’s a busier approach that nearly seems like a field recording.
Volume II shift directions into a more string focused affair, where a dreaminess surrounds “Giglio”, and in the middle the bright “Kyaiktiyo” floats like a lullaby in a nearly New Age like fashion. The best track from this portion, “Upnatma”, touches on the ideas of modern indie-tronica, and is quite stylish, even with a hint of pop.
A very unique collection that spans jazz, avant-garde, experimental, neo-classical and tribal ideas, the bare use of vocals by Fabrizio Modonese Palumbo and Ozcan Basak add even more appeal to Dal Monte’s unorthodox formula.
Travels well with: Pulsar Ensemble- Bizarre City; Laguerre/Noetinger- DnT