In a world overflowing with unheard music, Torre di Fine’s EP2 cuts through the noise with a raw, heart-forward surge of distortion, emotion, and shimmering post-rock energy that reminds us why human-made sound still matters.
Where noise becomes pure feeling
Music never sleeps. Somewhere someone is singing, hitting a drum with a stick, scraping a guitar with a pick and stomping on a distortion pedal, or sitting down behind a synthesizer to conjure feelings into the air with sound. A lot of that music may never get heard by anyone except the people making it, or those who happen to be there. Then there are all the recordings people make. It is increasingly difficult to get to listen to all of the things being put out there that are worthy of listening to. That’s why music publications like Igloo remain so important. We can help you with picking some great music for your journey through 21st century life.
I am happy to have this EP2 from Venice post-rockers Torre di Fine with me on this stage of the journey. If you are at all interested in just what can be done with a distortion pedal, evocative pounding drum licks, ethereal voice, and resonant shredding, you might want to make some time for these short four songs. They are emotional trips into realms of noise and melody. The band didn’t let their minds get in the way too much of what their hearts wanted to make. The result is an impressionistic sound painting of a late summer day saturated with bright glowing colors.
With minimal post-studio editing from the original sessions, these songs collect and radiate the evidence of energy. A silken gliding guitar melody lures me in on “Understatic” just like the lyrics about someone being pulled into another’s orbit and taken on a journey. We follow a person into distant places as the guitars shimmer above the pounding surf of endless drum beats, waves hitting the shore.
Distortion sparks colorful emotional journeys ::
I’m reminded at once of both the harmonies and tight songwriting of groups like Pinback, and the incredible haze of overload found in Asobi Seksu. There is a lot of overdrive happening here. On an emotional level I’m putting this up there with other favorite listens of this past year, like idialedyournumber. The two are totally different stylistically, but they both share a raw and unfiltered glee when they layer on the energetic spasms of pure gleeful chaos.
Since so much music listening is done with computers or phones these days, the complete immersion in handmade human emotion is part of the charm of both shoegaze and emo. We need empathy. Machines don’t have that. Music does. This isn’t emo, but it partakes some of the pathos of its sister genre, slow-core. The singing here is slower than the pulse of the band gathering their energies together in a cyclotron of hypnosis.
EP2 is a blast of emotion, and those who take the time to listen to this short burst that ranges from brief lament to lingering euphoria will be rewarded by the way it severs the link between the inhuman simulacra of digital bits and bytes and reclaims space for feeling.
For those who like their bits degraded into lo-fi, Torre di Fine offers a special treat. For this release they have created an “Extremely limited edition of 12 floppy disks.” That includes a “REALLY lo-fi version of the EP and a numbered gift. Floppy Disks are temperamental. Please be kind with any malfunction or file corruption you may find.”
Torre di Fine :: EP2 (Winter In Venice. [Bandcamp]
