Bruno Sanfilippo: InTRO remastered & expanded
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One comes to a Bruno Sanfilippo recording anticipating delicate, introspective piano performances, with many perhaps tinted with subtle electronic enhancements. That makes InTRO remastered & expanded something of a surprise for how much it subverts that expectation, though not displeasingly so. Piano playing is present (albeit minimally), but the emphasis is clearly on ambient-electronic soundscaping. It's important to note that the release, recorded at Onix Studio in Barcelona, isn't newly crafted material but rather a remastered version of his 2006 album InTRO that supplements seven original tracks with two unreleased. In all likelihood, a recording made by Sanfilippo in 2018 would be in line with the expectations as described.
As if designed to accentuate how different the recording is from his current style, “InTROworld” opens the album with a World Music-styled excursion heavily indebted to Middle Eastern music in its use of hand percussion and melismatic string expressions. It's safe to say that no blindfolded listener only familiar with Sanfilippo's recent output would identify it as a production by him. “InTROworld” isn't the only time the material ventures down unusual paths, however. The meditative second track, “InTROmental,” sees Sanfilippo flirting with moves more characteristic of early Tangerine Dream, while “InTROsacro” delves deeply into a blend of New Age-styled mysticism and vaporous ambient-dub of the kind associated with Basic Channel and Chain Reaction. Elsewhere, field recordings of rain and other elements intermittently drench the brooding symphonics of “InTROvoices.”
The album's first overt presentation of his piano playing arises, naturally, in “InTROpiano,” though his always-elegant execution is swathed in reverb and a dense ambient cloud; winds blow through this particular cathedral in a graceful way that will be readily familiar to longtime Sanfilippo listeners. Though the melancholy organ-and-choir setting “InTROsense” is powerful, the album reaches its peak with “InTROvisions,” an almost impossibly beautiful meditation guaranteed to leave you spellbound. That piece appears just past the midway point and thus strengthens the classic narrative arc formed by the nine variations, with the five preceding it acting as a gradual build and the three after providing a satisfying denouement.December 2018