Alessandro Cortini :: Volume Massimo (Mute)

Volume Massimo has all the trappings of a modern classic—efficient compositions, gorgeous production, a disregard for trends and fashions, but most of all, it is an album that you will not forget, and keep coming back to. And it will deliver every time. Alessandro is a master at layering textures and voices with a keen understanding of how to give his track spatial depth.

A new album by Alessandro Cortini is always an event. After working with Nine Inch Nails, Cortini has established himself as a great synth artist not only because of his sheer love of sound but also because of the coherence and grit of his productions. On Volume Massimo, he does what he does best—pieces that rely on apparently simple building blocks and yet are build up to massive sounds and arrangements.

It would be easy to categorise Cortini as an industrial music artist–after all, most people will know him through his collaborations with Trent Reznor. And this signature element to his sound is present on Volume Massimo in all its glory: the album relies on rich analog timbres underpinned by minimalist rhythms and bass, and often conjures monumental vistas. “Batticuore,” one of the singles of the record, sounds like seeing gigantic chimneys through a thick orange fog. The last note of “Momenti” honestly feels like turning on the last computer known to man in some sort of deserted wasteland. And this is not just this reviewer’s overactive imagination—Alessandro is a master at layering textures and voices with a keen understanding of how to give his track spatial depth.

This is one of the reasons why a lot of the music on this album feels this cinematic. The two opening pieces, “Amore Amaro” and “Let Go,” both sound big and epic despite the sequences being fairly simple. “Amore Amaro” especially just keeps building up until it comes crashing down into white noise. This also goes for the choice of timbres and sounds—while some of the sounds on Volume Massimo are massive cathartic screeches, as heard on “Sabbia,” there is a good amount of simple oscillator tones and minimalist synth percussion. Once again “Batticuore” serves as a good showcase of what one might expect on the album, with its simple white noise snare, and the way it ends on that naked oscillator tone, with still a tiny bit of audible drift. In the grandeur and the lyricism of Volume Massimo, there is still a sense of vulnerability. There is a pervading feeling on the record that nothing is safe, that everything decays. It might be the brittle palette of sounds, it might be the way the compositions often devolve into one or two notes towards the end, it might be the fact that the last track, “Dormi,” features synth clicks and beeps in the background of its main voice.

Volume Massimo has all the trappings of a modern classic—efficient compositions, gorgeous production, a disregard for trends and fashions, but most of all, it is an album that you will not forget, and keep coming back to. And it will deliver every time.

Volume Massimo is available on Mute.