in 7 Tracks by Emiliano Beltzer
R
ound Trip (Blue Mama Records, Native Division Records, December 2020) is the latest album by Alessandro Stellano, a Neapolitan musician who has been based in Melbourne for the past five years. Bassist, guitarist, composer and educator, Alessandro keeps his connection with his hometown and culture alive, from a distance. In this album, Alessandro says he «proposes a parallel: seven seas, seven tracks, seven musical worlds. It is a heterogeneous album, which could be classified as instrumental world music but also understood beyond stylistic limits.» In that sense, it is quite different from his previous album, At Home (2012), in which the improvisations and compositions sound more like Avishai Cohen’s “contemporary” jazz aesthetic. Here, Alessandro appeals to his life experiences as a musician in his travels around the world, and together with a select group of Neapolitan musicians, he creates another type of trip. The album begins with Dali, a track with sounds between pop and jazz, at times reminiscent of music like To the End of the World by Pat Metheny. Maybe it’s the style of the guitar solo, and perhaps, in a little way, because of the use of non-
Segmento Issue XXIII • June-August 2021
Album Review
Around the World
lexical vocables (melodies without text produced by the human voice). The piece itself raises an interesting rhythmic complexity that varies between regular and irregular time signatures, especially in the main melody. The general feeling is a rather friendly, accessible sound, evoking something perhaps less harsh than clocks melted in the desert of time and memory. In El Diez, the second song on the album, the soprano saxophone and the accordion are added to the already present bass, drums, piano, guitar and vocal line-up. The nylon string guitar also appears, giving the song a more acoustic, “folky” feel. Here, Stellano pays tribute to one of the most idolised characters in the history of world football (particularly in his hometown of Naples), Diego Armando Maradona. It also shows us another side of his personality, and his interests apart from music. The video that accompanies El Diez is an interesting animation depicting Maradona and the city of Naples. From here the album takes new directions. In Back Home, the third song on the album, there is prominent electronic programming (all by Stellano himself). The melody of the song is carried by the guitar, which at times even sounds
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