Italian sound artists Roberto Galati and Francis Gri—renowned for their minimalist electronics and neoclassical-tinged soundscapes—craft deeply organic and harmonically rich textures that have defined their place in the post-ambient scene. With Drift, the duo channels their refined artistry into a solemn and immersive foray through wintry isolation, cinematic melancholy, and spiritual introspection.
Frosty, meditative, and deeply moving
Roberto Galati and Francis Gri are two experienced and distinctive sound artists from Italy, specializing in minimalist electronics, neoclassic-tinged soundscapes, with a fancy for organic and harmonic textures. In solo—or in collaborative endeavors—with other fellow sound artists such as James Murray, Sergio Mosconi, Will Bolton, they rapidly made a name on the indie (post) ambient music scene. Their materials were notably signed by the now classical Databloem label, among a network of other labels devoted to expanded space music and chamber craft based microtonalism (Whitelabrecs etc).
Titled Drift, and as suggested by its artwork, the album embraces a solemn, wintry, and bleakly isolationist path. With eyes closed, and guided by its sonic ingredients, the listener is led into wide, foggy spaces — to the windy north — through contemplative, primordial, and timeless landscapes that evoke a lonesome sense of introspection and inward reflection. Built on clear acoustic motifs such as piano, detached melodious lines sustained by dense, sculpted, and slowly evolving distorted guitar drones, rumbling electronic patterns, and processed field recordings, the album unfolds with a sense of mystery. Noir-age, narcotic jazz inflections sometimes drift across the surface, as in the evocative and suspenseful “Haze.” Vast, enveloping timbral atmospheres seem to permeate empty spaces in a never-ending, ghostly, and vaporous ballet of lost souls. More assaultive, lugubrious, harsh, and noisy beat-laden movements also rise at certain moments, as in the hypnotic and lush soundscape “Fear.” The album closes with the grandiose and metaphysical.
All in all, a truly memorable electronic drift-scape with subtle touches of cinematic neoclassical atmosphere—delicately emotional and spiritually moving. It might find an appropriate place alongside the sorrowful and impressionistic semi-classical works of Mouth of the Sun, James Murray, and Stefano Guzzetti, or the bleak cinematic orchestrations of Shrine, Dahlia’s Tears, and Riccardo Donoso. A clear candidate for one of the best albums of the year.
Drift is available on Gri Projects. [Bandcamp]
