TLON: Philosophy in the Digital Age

ArOuNd tHe wOrld IN 7 tRaCks

by Emiliano Beltzer

Round 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 nonlexical 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

Album Review 27ART & CULTURE

credits

Tony Guido Piano, Keyboards Luca Mignano Drums, Percussion Marco Spedaliere Saxophone Alessandro Liccardo Electric guitar Vincenzo di Cirolamo Acoustic and Electric Guitar Antonio Caiazzo Accordion Alessandro Stellano Bass, Programming and Effects, Composition distorted. The rhythm is regular, with a back beat and with reggaeton edges, and the general sound is somewhere between rock and electronic, until around the middle of the piece, where a new section appears with sounds from the Middle East, and the inclusion of a violin solo. With respect to the first two tracks, almost everything is different. The sound is very polished and there is a lot of post-production. One for Cecil (perhaps dedicated to Cecil Taylor?) is another turnaround. Right from the intro, the piece takes us toward sounds that, in our euro-centric collective imagination, are related to Africa. There are marimbas, shakers, and rhythms in 6/8. An example of this style of music is the song Chamutengure by Zimbabwean musician Thomas Mapfumo. The backbeat is added to the Afro rhythm, creating a more modern sound, and on this groove it is the bass that carries the main melody. The last minute of the song changes to a Calypso rhythm (a Caribbean genre directly descended from Afro music). This coda leaves us with the geographical area for the next piece, Los Tres Companeros. In salsa-style clave (another one of those denominations that can end up meaning nothing), the song is a mix between rumba pop and guaracha, although with an intricate musical form, full of cuts and changes of rhythm and groove. Turning towards the East comes Sol Levante, the second last song on the album. The unmistakable sound of the Japanese koto is mixed with other instruments that appeal to the imaginary of Asian music (a Javanese gamelan can also be heard in there). This is the slow track of the album, located in an appropriate place, after those Caribbean “upbeat” rhythms. It has a slow back beat, and even rain sound effects. It is perhaps the most stripped back of the whole album, few notes in its melody, with a lot of “air”. The last track honours the desert. Desert Wind presents a groove and a melody that immediately refers to the Sahara desert. Africa is present again, this time in a very different version. On modernsounding drums and distorted electric guitar, the saxophone and melismatic vocables reappear. To this are added the lute and percussion. It has overtly rocker moments (almost heavy metal) with an electric guitar sound reminiscent of Nguyen Lee, and a powerful soprano sax solo, perhaps one of the most “jazzy” on the album. As a hidden track (if you have ever listened to music on a CD you will know what I’m talking about) a jam on the same theme, between bass, drums and sax, brings almost free jazz sounds. I couldn’t stop thinking of the first Pastorius album, Jaco from 1974. There is something for everyone in this new album by Alessandro Stellano, where the presence of natural elements, the use of suggestive titles and the iconic sounds of some of the most influential music of modern culture manage to generate the idea of a soundscape and a musical journey. Fasten the seatbelts of your imagination.