… and then there’s that voice – my God, that voice! – that by now comes back more and more rarely and, when it does, you realize how much you have missed it in the meantime…
… that struggles to emerge from the electronic scenarios that Matteo Uggeri, the other half of the Starlight Assembly project, has set up by putting together samples, beats, electronics, and field recordings.
And in this fragmented, cinematic, atmospheric, and enveloping scenario that Dominic Appleton‘s voice sporadically rises to the fore and it is in that moment that the heart misses a beat and it seems as if we are hearing Breathless being digitally sifted, shattered like emotional findings in an otherwise aseptic hard disk…
… melodic oasis in a blue-tinged scenography, of silicon and melancholy, suspended between glitches, industrial ghosts, and memories of 90s urbanization, traced when we were expecting an apocalypse that never came…
… in its place, only desert and no fantasy about the future, boneless fragments and phantasmagorical voices that interact in the void.
Matteo Uggeri is the demiurge that manipulates the soundscapes, while Appleton’s voice searches for the hook in the reiteration of words or is often forced into it, lobotomized and suffering, by the sound environment set up for her.
But then there are moments like ‘Look What We’ve Wasted’, which is basically the best 2021 song you’ve never heard of, cleverly placed in the setlist so that, after the shadowy darkness of the tracks that precede it, it comes as a blinding light…
… with the lunar beauty of its melodic lines perfectly embedded between the rhythmic and harmonic elements edited by Matteo who, for once, adapts and bows to the story of Breathless, in a moving gesture of love towards his companion to whom he gives a dress capable of shining in the dark.
But, the interaction between the two reaches its true emotional climax in the beautiful “Long Goodbye”: poignant strings and a chanting mantra serve as a backdrop to Dominic’s solo number, which declaims the British spleen in its own right…
… while the disjointed rhythms invent splits and polyrhythms without ever compromising the sense of yearning of a song, whose listening embarrasses us all for how it seems to violate the intimacy of two musicians caught in their most intense communion.
It is hard to believe that Matteo and Dominic have never met for many months for all the album sessions that took place in 2018 in a pre-COVID world and that the interaction was all digital on the Milan and London axis.
Similar sensibilities, probably, that allow the two of them to write and compose, for example, that beautiful lay prayer of “Still Air”, which echoes David Sylvian of “Blemish“, between lonely trumpets and a rhythm that moves almost imperceptibly to the ear, as if it were a creature that lives with its own beat and without our knowledge.
It would be worth mentioning “Looking for Clues”, whose rhythmic embroidery recalls Mick Karn and Steve Jansen, if only the two ex-Japan members had gone up as Passengers instead of U2, but with Brian Eno as the conductor…
… or “Bloodlines” which, with its arpeggiated and point-like guitars, evokes the ghosts of that post-rock of which Sparkle in Grey are still valuable exponents (and it’s not by chance that the track has been nicely remixed by Pan American).
But let’s save the last mention for “Unravelling”, a wonderful bonus track (featured on the 7” included with the first pressing of the album), which – with its new wave bass (by guest Ruben Camillas) and its clear, direct melody – could very well be featured on the next Breathless album (to be released in early 2022), were it not for that electronic bass drum and those sampled winds that fit like a mosaic around the vocals.
The rest of the program is a sublime catalog of emotional wave emotionality and desolate melancholy, the wrinkle of a serene smile that draws a furrow on the face similar to that of vinyl records we loved most from 4AD or Tenor Vossa.
It is Matteo Uggeri’s masterpiece, who paints scripts that do not need events, but only scenarios…
… and then that voice – my God, that voice! – that by now comes back more and more rarely and when it does you realize how much you have missed it; that struggles to emerge from the electronic scenarios that…
