Mauve: Sweet Noise on the Sofa
Mauve

Sweet Noise on the Sofa is a surprisingly strong, self-released EP by Mauve, a post-rock trio from Verbania, Italy that formed in May 2005. Guitarists Carlo Tosi and Alberto Corsi and drummer Elda Belfanti prove themselves equally adept at crafting delicate interweaves sweetened by an occasional glockenspiel as they are unleashing dissonant squalls of stabbing noise. “Miles Davis” is a solid opener, even if it stylistically has more in common with Italian post-rockers Giardini di Mirò than it does the legendary trumpeter. Tosi adds a pleasant if somewhat bland vocal to the otherwise appealing slow-burner “Keep Me Warm” where the guitarists' snub-nosed lines clearly nod in Robert Fripp's direction, while “Mauve Paranoid” moves from delicate guitar passages to volcanic episodes where the six-strings explode with lethal force. “Autumn Leaves” isn't a fifteen-minute epic but a vocal-based song that decompresses from violence to serenity in five minutes, followed, after four minutes, by a bedroom-styled exercise in glockenspiel-guitar interplay. Certainly a promising enough debut.

April 2007