textura

Albums
Aardvarck
Vieo Abiungo
Celer
Concern
Enrico Coniglio
Copy
Corrugated Tunnel
Dalot
Darkstar
Gareth Dickson
Directorsound
Dryft
Eskmo
Lugano Fell
Benjamin Finger
Fond of Tigers
Gel-Sol
Giardini di Mirò
Gibson & Rose
Gareth Hardwick
Haruki
Marc Houle
I'm Not A Gun
Rafael Anton Irisarri
Library Tapes
Markus Mehr
Minamo and English
Yann Novak
okamotonoriaki
M. Ostermeier
Morgan Packard
Petrolio
Benoit Pioulard
Hein Schoer
Seaworthy and Rösner
Sketches For Albinos
Slow Dancing Society
Solo Andata
System
Antonio Trinchera
Walkner.Moestl
Zazie V. E. Anderen Stern

Compilations / Mixes
Bacterium
Lost Tribe Sound: One
Ninja Tune XX

EPs
Aufgang
Bogdan
Ibex
Jacksonville
Komet
Minus
Morning Factory
Novak + Manning
rANdOMoiDz / NoseTek
Sozonov
SQware
:take

Giardini di Mirò: Il Fuoco
City Centre Offices

Everyone's favourite Italian post-rock band returns with a new album that's not, in fact, a collection of new songs but rather a soundtrack the group composed for Il Fuoco (The Fire), an Italian silent movie released in 1915 and directed by Giovanni Pastrone. So while the music sounds unmistakably like Giardini di Mirò, it's also Giardini di Mirò in full-blown soundtrack mode. As such, there are no vocals to distract one's attention away from the (imagined) visuals (notwithstanding some wordless vocalizing during a couple of tracks), and the material—as beautiful as it often is—assumes the character of music designed to supportively accompany moving images.

Performed for the first time in Turin October 28th, 2007 and subsequently laid down in Bologna by band members Corrado Nuccini, Emanuele Reverberi, Francesco Donadello, Jukka Reverberi, Luca Di Mira, and Mirko Venturelli, Il Fuoco was released in Italy in 2009 and now receives an international distribution via City Centre Offices. The soundtrack gets off to a haunting start with an elegant arrangement for clarinet, strings, and guitar in track two, and then moves through four shorter episodes before lighting a post-rock fire in track seven. The eighth is an experimental electro-acoustic setting for piano, percussion, and electronics that ultimately builds towards a roaring climax before shifting into four minutes of driving post-rock fueled by vibes, strings, and a burning spire of electric guitars. A subsequent cacophanous meltdown of screeches and ammunition firing follows, which leaves one wondering what might be transpiring visually, until the noise subsides and arcing guitars sing a mournful song alongside a funereal drum pattern. In the penultimate track, the bright ping of glockenspiel tinkles offsets the moans of anguished spirits before Il Fuoco enters its final moments with the group giving full voice to the mournful material.

The album explores multiple moods and dynamic contrasts as it works through its twelve pieces (grouped into three sections representing different moments in a passionate love story: “La Favilla” [The Spark]; “La Fiamma” [The Flame]; and “La Cenere” [The Ash]), with some sections loud and intense and others ponderous and restful (the third track is especially memorable for featuring a lovely clarinet and melodica duet). Being a soundtrack makes the album seem like a somewhat anomalous release for the band, yet Il Fuoco nevertheless features plenty of the melancholy and graceful guitar playing that's become one of the band's signatures.

October 2010