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Immagine del redattoreClaudio Vignali

(ENG) "Rach Mode On" reviewed by "The Wire"

























"Mazurek’s piccolo trumpet is a key voice on Rach Mode On, the latest album from Italian pianist and composer Claudio Vignali. Imagining what might happen had Sergei Rachmaninoff access to a modern electronic music studio, Vignali and collaborator Daniele Principato create an electroacoustic real-time loop mix of live sampled piano, trumpet, strings and electronics. On the title track, Vignali drapes neo-romantic piano over a percolating techno beat, as a string quartet sashay across the ballroom. “A Ship In The Abyss” finds Vignali’s spare piano adrift in a sea of reverb, with Mazurek’s trumpet coming through the fog like a flickering searchlight. “Alien Floating Brain” dispenses with piano to pay apparent homage to Drexciya, with wisps and sputters of bit-crushed trumpet over percolating synth patterns.

It’s shadowed by “Dark”, where Mazurek interacts with his live sampled self, firing silvery streaks over reverse delayed tones and an ominous bassline. Mazurek steps out of the textural role on “Little Light” and “Breath”, his sea sprayed nocturnes underlain by the rustle and pulse of Vignali’s modular synth." Stewart Smith

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