Vittorio Vandelli
- A Day Of Warm Rain In Heaven
(Equilibrium EQM006)
One of the joys of writing this stuff for my website is that through serendipity you can discover music that is so 'out there' and weird that it stands out from the dross thanks to its sheer imagination. That is the case with this album by Italian multi-instrumentalist Vittorio Vandelli. According to the sleevenotes Vittorio is a founding member of Ataraxia, an Italian band I haven't come across before. A Day Of Warm Rain In Heaven is his debut solo album and a staggeringly fine one at that. Based on Samuel Coleridge's 'Rhyme of the Ancient Mariner', this album sets Coleridge's words to a musical backing that can only be classed as medieval gothic neoclassical prog-rock!
Now that is something of a heady mix of styles, but believe me it works a treat here - using a mixture of electric guitars, synths, samplers alongside regular 'classical' instrumentation, all played by Vittorio while the vocals are supplied by the equally multi-faceted Francesca Nicoli. The album goes through many moods: ghostly, industrial, ambient, rock and classical. The musical styles shift and morph until one is dizzy with the virtuosity on display here.
I'm not familiar with the Coleridge text, so I can't and won't comment on the authenticity of the lyric to the original - and I have to admit that at times I could have done with a lyric sheet as the thickly Italian-accented English language vocal is ocassionally hard to decipher. But this adds another layer of otherworldliness to the whole album. This album is hugely atmospheric and the music is both imaginative and yet very approachable, and it just gets better every time I play it. This is definitely one of my albums of the year.
Contact: Equilibrium Music, PO Box 2909, 1123-001 Lisboa, Portugal.
Web: http://www.equilibriummusic.com/ Email: mailto:info@equilibriummusic.com