Daniel Avery & Alessandro Cortini :: Illusion of Time (Mute)

While the melodic content is sparse, the work put in to making these synths sound so large, beautifully melancholic, sometimes on the verge of breaking up, is staggering. Layer by layer, the album deconstructs the illusion of time.

The solace of more melancholic colours

For a lot of us, 2020 has not been a very fun year. You might read this review confined in your apartment, just as I am writing it right now, for fear of the Covid epidemic. You might have decided to take a break from social media in order to care for your mental health. You might go to work still, in order to keep feeding yourself and your family, in these very reduced circumstances. And so I hope that to you, the news of a new Alessandro Cortini record was as uplifting as it was for me when I learnt about it weeks ago.

More precisely, the album is a collaboration between Cortini, who graced us with one of our favourite records of the year last year (Volume Massimo) and Daniel Avery, a well-known producer and DJ from the UK whose latest effort, Song for Alpha, was also released on Mute (just like VM). Avery’s style lies more in dance and techno influences than Alessandro’s, but on Illusion of Time, it seems that both artists found common ground in beautifully elongated pads and drones, evocative textures and playful synth melodies. Mood and compositional ideas vary throughout the record, which is perfectly paced, alternating shorter experiments with a simpler focus (“Space Channel,” “Interrupted by the Cloud of Light”) with grander, deeper cuts such as “Inside the Ruins” or “Water.”

Some tracks conjure an airy light, like the delicate “CC Pad,” others provide the solace of more melancholic colours, like “Enter Exit,” with its distantly apocalyptic pad rising underneath the dark, claustrophobic rhythms of the opening.

The sounds are gorgeous. At times, it feels like a more elevated version of some tracks from a Forse project. While the melodic content is sparse (pretty much only present on the title track), the work put in to making these synths sound so large, beautifully melancholic, sometimes on the verge of breaking up, is staggering. Layer by layer, the album deconstructs the illusion of time, until the listener is left inside a pure moment. An unexpected collaborative effort with very fruitful results.

Illusion of Time is available on Mute.